Bill would give farmers right to repair their own equipment

President Biden issued an executive order last year supporting Americans' right to repair items themselves instead of having to pay for time-consuming, expensive repairs from the manufacturer. "Now, Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., wants legislative action to address the situation. His Agriculture Right to Repair Act will guarantee farmers the right to repair their own equipment and end current restrictions on the repair market," Jacqui Fatka reports for FarmProgress.

"I’ve been a farmer my whole life, and I’ve seen the unfair practices of equipment manufacturers make it harder and harder for folks to work on their tractors themselves—forcing them to go to an authorized mechanic and pay an arm and a leg for necessary repairs," Tester said in a statement. "Manufacturers have prevented producers from fixing their own machines in order to bolster corporate profits, and they’ve done it at the expense of family farmers and ranchers, who work hard every day to harvest the food that feeds families across the country."

Several farm groups have spoken up in support of the bill, including the National Farmers Union. A spokesperson for the Association of Equipment Manufacturers said the bill is a "solution in search of a problem," Fatka reports. Since Biden's order, the Federal Trade Commission has increased enforcement against illegal repair restrictions, and many large firms have changed their policies to make it easier for consumers to repair their own electronics, but no law enshrines such a right.

According to Tester's press release, the bill would require equipment manufacturers to:

• Make available any documentation, part, software, or tool required to diagnose, maintain, or repair their equipment.
• Provide means to disable and re-enable an electronic security lock or other security-related function to effect diagnostics, repair, or maintenance.
• Permit third party software to provide interoperability with other parts/tools, and to protect both the farmer’s data and equipment from hackers.
• Ensure that when a manufacturer no longer produces documentation, parts, software, or tools for its equipment that the relevant copyrights and patents are placed in the public domain.
• Ensure parts are replaceable using commonly available tools without causing damage to the equipment, or provide specialized tools to owners or independent providers on fair and reasonable terms.
• Return data ownership to farmers. Manufacturers currently collect and sell all the data generated by farmers, and this data is the farmers’ “secret sauce” for how they conduct their business.

The bill also gives the FTC the authority to treat any violations of those provisions as an unfair or decptive act, Fatka reports.