John Deere Vows to Let American Farmers Repair Their Own Machines

John Deere & Co., the world’s largest manufacturer of agricultural equipment, may finally allow American farmers to repair the company’s products on their own.

John Deere is a pioneer in integrating advanced computer systems into farming machinery. He controls over half of the US tractor market. As John Deere Machines While technology has become increasingly sophisticated in recent years, American farmers complain about the fact that they need to travel farther to get their machines fixed.

A memorandum o’ understanding (MOU). Signed January 8, 2008 John Deere and American Farm Bureau Federation will hopefully lead to some change. In the private agreement, the Illinois-based farming equipment giant said it will commit to provide individual farmers and independent repair shops with the information they need to diagnose, maintain, and repair the company’s smart tractors.

John Deere specifically stated that equipment owners as well as independent mechanics will have access to electronic manuals, on-board diagnostics, product service demonstrations, software, and other publications related service, parts, operation and safety.

They come in a variety of prices. These diagnostic tools are priced differently, according to the company’s websiteA 1-year license to a technical manual could cost as much as $3160

With that said, John Deere also affirmed that it won’t “divulge trade secrets, proprietary or confidential information” Or allow anyone else to “override safety features or emissions controls or to adjust agricultural equipment power levels.”

The AFBF is a Washington D.C.-based lobbying organisation that also agreed to encourage state agricultural bureaus. “refrain from introducing, promoting, or supporting federal or state ‘Right to Repair’ legislation that imposes obligations beyond the commitments in this MOU.”

“This is an issue that has been a priority for us for several years and has taken a lot of work to get to this point,” Vincent Duvall, president of AFBF, stated this in a press release.

“And as you use equipment, we all know at some point in time there’s going to be problems with it. And we did have problems with having the opportunity to repair our equipment where we wanted to, or even repair it on the farm.”

Montana Farmers Union, one of the many groups that support this movement “Right to Repair” Movement in the United States raised objections to the fact this voluntary private agreement lacks enforcement.

“If they truly, honestly, wanted to give farmers and ranchers and independent repair shops the right to repair equipment, why are they so afraid of legislation that authorizes that?” Walter Schweitzer, President of Montana Farmers Union was interviewed by NPR.

Schweitzer, who owns a family farm in Geyser in central Montana, stated that he would need to repair a John Deere tractor problem in 2020.

“My old tractor, I have service manuals that if it breaks down I can finger through those service manuals and I can troubleshoot and I can fix it, but with this tractor, I need the software,” He told KULR-8 News. “If I don’t have the software, there’s nothing I can do. And that’s wrong.”

Bill Pan is a reporter with The Epoch Times.