I immediately thought of Antoine Parmentier (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoine-Augustin_Parmentier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoine-Augustin_Parmentier

I immediately thought of Antoine Parmentier (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoine-Augustin_Parmentier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoine-Augustin_Parmentier) who was trying to get the potato accepted in France and hired armed guards to protect his potato field to convince people they were valuable... but let people steal as many as they wanted.