Can American farmers trust the government to let them repair their own tractors? | Opinion

American farmers welcome the news that the Environmental Protection Agency has told heavy machinery manufacturer John Deere it must allow us to repair our tractors instead of succumbing to monopolistic practices that cost us billions each year. All I can say is — it’s about time.

For years, American farmers have been denied their right to repair their equipment. Instead, companies such as Deere have forced us to go to dealers for repairs by embedding proprietary software in their products, even if it means waiting months. The result is that our crops have not been planted as timely as possible, costing valuable yield, and have too often been left to rot in the fields.

My family on my mother’s side has been farming in Bates County, Missouri, since the 19th century and on my father’s side for more than 100 years. Parts of our farm are constructed with boards from trees felled and milled on site prior to the Great Depression.

I’ve been riding tractors for as long as I can remember and driving them since I was 11. I remember rebuilding the cutting edge on the platform head when I was in the second grade. Today, we farm about 4,000 acres of corn and soybeans and have 250 cow-calf pairs.

I have personally lost tens of thousands of dollars in yield from delays in getting my equipment repaired by my local dealership. I’m not alone. Estimates of crop loss due to delayed repairs are as high as $3 billion annually.

Now farmers are fighting back, and public officials are finally taking notice.

An antitrust lawsuit against John Deere is making its way through the court in the Northern District of Illinois. More lawsuits are expected. Several states, most notably Colorado, have also passed “right to repair” laws. Further action by state attorneys general is likely to follow the EPA’S lead.

In 2021, President Joe Biden issued an executive order promoting agricultural right to repair. The order requires the Federal Trade Commission to establish rules for product repairability that do not limit consumers’ right to use independent repair shops or to fix their own products.

While the order focused on agriculture, several other industries are also guilty. Cars, computers, appliances and pretty much everything with a computer chip are increasingly difficult if not impossible to repair. Some manufacturers go even further, intentionally designing products that are essentially unfixable. The clear strategy is to force consumers to buy new.

In the case of John Deere, the company’s software prevents independent repair shops or particularly handy farmers from diagnosing problems, let alone fixing them. Instead, we have to get in line at the local Deere dealership where, as with any monopoly, prices are high and service is often inadequate.

It’s a shame that it has taken the EPA so long to enforce the law they have oversight of. We’ll see if it is just paying lip service by forcing John Deere to change some language in its operating manuals, or whether the agency will hold manufacturers accountable for what that language actually means to working people in the real world. Either way, we are glad the EPA is engaged on the issue of right to repair.

In the meantime, farmers will continue feeding the world. We are hopeful that we will have trusted partners — in Washington and in the private sector as well — who not only understand the importance of our work, but respect us enough to run our businesses efficiently, freely and profitably in a highly competitive global market.

It is, after all, the American way.

Jared Wilson is a fifth-generation farmer in west-central Missouri.