Right To Repair 2

In a previous post, I talked about how manufacturers for electronic products are limiting access to parts and critical informations so that they can charge their customers high prices for repairs. As it turns out, they are not the only ones who are doing it.

While going down a rabbit hole of farming contents on YouTube, I found that John Deere, the largest tractor manufacturer in the U.S. is also trying to monopolize the repair service of their products.

Tractors are the central machine in modern farming. Usually, they are used to provide power and tractions for all mechanical farming jobs, like plowing, sowing the seed, and harvesting. Thus, when tractors are broken, farmers would want it to be fixed immediately so they can restart to their farm works as soon as possible.

Traditionally, farmers could fix most of the tractor issues themselves as parts and mechanism of tractors are available like cars. By fixing tractors on their own, farmers could not only save time but also protect their thin profit margins.

However, some on the new John Deere tractor models are using multiple software systems that their users have no access to. The result is that farmers now must go to John Deere to fix their tractors when they have some problems, that may involve the software systems, like emotion control issues. To make things worse, John Deere repair shops are hard to come by: for every 12,018 farms and 5.3 million acres of farmland, there is just one Deere dealership, U.S PIRG found earlier this year.

This is a truly disgusting use of software systems. A Delay in tractors repair may cause farmers to miss important deadlines which as a result would affect the yield of that year. The increased cost of repair also means the profit margin would gets even lower for farmers. The consumers’ interest would also be hurt as farmers are forced to increase crop prices to account for their loss from unable to fix their tractors. The only one that benefits from this sick plot is John Deere.

The defense by John Deere is extremely similar to defense by tech companies, citing safety concerns especially the potential of violating the Clean Air Act when access to emission control software is given. I don’t know enough about tractors to decide whether it is a fundamental problem forbidding self-repair of emission control systems. However, it is clear that John Deer is leaving farmers with two options, pay the price or break the law