The Feds Are Coming for John Deere Over the Right to Repair
gizmodo.com
The farm equipment giant has fought against letting farmers repair their own equipment for years.

The Federal Trade Commission is investigating tractor manufacturer John Deere over long standing allegations that Deere makes its farm equipment hard to repair. The investigation has been ongoing since 2021, and we know more about it now thanks to a court filing made public on Thursday.

The stated purpose of the FTC’s [investigation] is ‘[t]o determine whether Deere & Company, or any other person, has engaged in or is engaging in unfair, deceptive, anticompetitive, collusive, coercive, predatory, exploitative, or exclusionary acts or practices in or affecting commerce related to the repair of agricultural equipment in violation of Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act

John Deere has been notorious for years for making its farm equipment hard to repair. Much like today’s cars, John Deere’s farm equipment comes with a lot of computers. When something simple in one of its tractors or threshers breaks, a farmer can’t just fix it themselves. Even if the farmer has the technical and mechanical know-how to make a simple repair, they often have to return to the manufacturer at great expense. Why? The on-board computers brick the machines until a certified Deere technician flips a switch.

Farmers have been complaining about this for years and Deere has repeatedly promised to make its tractors easier to repair. It lied. John Deere equipment was so hard to repair that it led to an explosion in the used tractor market. Old farm equipment made before the advent of onboard computing sold for a pretty penny because it was easier to repair.

In 2022, a group of farmers filed a class action lawsuit against John Deere and accused it of running a repair monopoly. Deere, of course, attempted to get the case dismissed but failed.

Chief among Deere’s promises was that it would provide farmers and independent repair shops with the equipment and documentation they needed to repair their equipment. The promises of the memorandum have not come to pass. Senator Elizabeth Warren called Deere out in a letter about all of this on October 2. “Rather than uphold their end of the bargain, John Deere has provided impaired tools and inadequate disclosures,” Warren said in the letter.

  • TheTechnician27@lemmy.worldEnglish
    112·
    1 month ago

    Well you know, unless you’re Trump, who would defang the FTC and prevent them from taking this sort of pro-consumer action. Then the farmers will vote for you anyway because at the end of the day they’re still predominantly bigots who don’t know shit about fuck outside the land they farm.

    Edit: farmers as a demographic overwhelmingly support Trump. 78% of them believe that Trump would better address inflation than Harris, and 76% believe he would better “expand trade and address trade disputes” – the literal exact opposite of what he’s been shown to have done with his stupid “trade war”. As a demographic, farmers are exactly as described above.

    • nforminvasion@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      1 month ago

      They don’t even know shit about the land they farm. Western (and now global by virtue of colonization) farming techniques are abysmal. The way we grow our food and take care of our lands are awful. But God forbid those librul scientists dare to suggest change…

      Farmers are absolutely necessary and are far underappreciated but god damn, are they also some of the most stubborn people you’ll ever meet

    • Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      2·
      1 month ago

      I don’t know about that. I guess there may be some sampling bias, but I actually know a handful of farmers that are well educated and or saavy business people. They tend to be surrounded by communities of naked under their overalls bigoted neckbeards geographically, but I’m not sure the majority of actual farmers are as dumb as you imply.