Trending
The Conversation
As tractors became more sophisticated over the past two decades, the big manufacturers allowed farmers fewer options for repairs. Rather than hiring independent repair shops, farmers have increasingly had to wait for company-authorized dealers to arrive. Getting repairs could take days, often leading to lost time and high costs.
A new memorandum of understanding between the country's largest farm equipment maker, John Deere Corp., and the American Farm Bureau Federation is now raising hopes that U.S. farmers will finally regain the right to repair more of their own equipment.
However, supporters of right-to-repair laws suspect a more sinister purpose: to slow the momentum of efforts to secure right-to-repair laws around the country.
Under the agreement, John Deere promises to give farmers and independent repair shops access to manuals, diagnostics and parts. But there's a catch - the agreement isn't legally binding, and, as part of the deal, the influential Farm Bureau promised not to support any federal or state right-to-repair legislation.
You can listen to more articles from The Conversation narrated by Noa.
The right-to-repair movement has become the leading edge of a pushback against growing corporate power. Intellectual property protections, whether patents on farm equipment, crops, computers or cellphones, have become more intense in recent decades and cover more territory, giving companies more control over what farmers and other consumers can do with the products they buy.
For farmers, few examples of those corporate constraints are more frustrating than repair restrictions and patent rights that prevent them from saving seeds from their own crops for future planting.
How a few companies became so powerful
The United States' market economy requires competition to function properly, which is why U.S. antitrust policies were strictly enforced in the post-World War II era.