John Deere is being sued over farmers’ ability to fix their machines
John Deere’s FTC Disputes With The Farmer’s Choice: A Case Study With The Federal Trade Commission and Donald Trump
As tractors and combines have gotten more computerized, farmers have complained that Deere has restricted access to its software and made it difficult, or nearly impossible, for owners to diagnose and fix problems themselves or with the help of independent mechanics. Farmers have to use authorized dealers, who tend to charge more and take longer.
They also wrote the FTC did not gather enough evidence to have “any real confidence of our ultimate chance of success” in litigation — and said the agency was also in ongoing active negotiations for a settlement with Deere.
It’s unclear how the case might proceed when Republicans take control of the FTC after Donald Trump becomes president on Monday. The agency’s two Republican commissioners had voted against suing Deere; one of them, Andrew Ferguson, is Trump’s pick to become the new FTC chair.
John Deere faces a federal lawsuit that alleges the company forced farmers to use only authorized dealers to get crucial repairs done, boosting its profits.
Things have not gotten better for farmers, according to Wiens. There is nothing different for the farmers on the ground despite the noise around a right to repair.
The Federal Trade Commission and several other states have sued each other over the farmers’ right to repair their own equipment.
Deere’s reluctance to make its products more accessible has angered many of its customers, and even garnered generally bipartisan congressional support for reparability in the agricultural space. John Deere is accused by the FTC of violating Colorado state law that requires operational software to be made accessible to users.
“This has to be the thing that does it,” Wiens says. “The FTC is not going to settle until John Deere makes the software available. This is a step in the right direction.”
Kyle Wiens is the CEO of iFixit and has written before about John Deere’s repair-averse tactics. In an interview today, he noted how frustrated farmers get when they try to fix something that has gone wrong, only to run into Deere’s policy.
