"A broad coalition of agriculture interests has filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission against John Deere, demanding the right to repair their own equipment, Jesse Hirsch reports for The Counter. The 43-page complaint was filed for the National Farmers Union, other advocacy organizations and state farmers unions in Iowa, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, and Wisconsin.
"Currently, when a piece of John Deere equipment breaks down on the job, its owner is expressly forbidden from making their own fixes—only authorized, company-employed technicians have those permissions," Hirsch reports. "And even if you attempted to conduct your own repairs, you’d find it next-to-impossible, particularly on newer, computer-driven models. Deere locks down its proprietary knowledge tightly, and without company-provided diagnostic software and equipment, even getting a sense of what’s broken is virtually out of reach."The complaint details how difficult John Deere has made it for farmers to repair their own equipment. The same themes keep coming up: "lengthy waits to get a Deere-authorized technician to service machinery; further waits for the actual repairs; crops and profits lost in the meantime; and overall frustration that a company making $6 billion annually can keep such a stranglehold on their own ability to do business," Hirsch reports. And, farmers complain, the company failed to follow through on a 2018 promise to make repair tools, software guides and diagnostic equipment available for farmers starting Jan. 1, 2021.
The Biden administration issued an executive order last year supporting right-to-repair laws and ordering the FTC to limit farm-equipment manufacturers from preventing such repairs, Hirsch reports. The FTC voted unanimously to adopt the order and has promised to crack down on companies like John Deer "with vigor." Complementary right-to-repair bills were introduced in the House and Senate in February, but haven't passed yet, Alex Gray reports for Successful Farming.
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