MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

John Deere and US farmers agree on MOU to allow customers the right to fix their own equipment

Consumer groups have for years been calling on companies to allow their customers to be able to fix everything from smart-phones to tractors.

The American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) and John Deere & Co. signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on Sunday, putting an end to a long litigation. The tractor factory has agreed to give its US customers the right to fix their own equipment. Previously, farmers were only allowed to use authorized parts and service facilities rather than cheaper independent repair options.

Deere and Co. is one of the world's largest makers farming equipment.

Consumer groups have for years been calling on companies to allow their customers to be able to fix everything from smart-phones to tractors.

The MOU “addresses a long-running issue for farmers and ranchers when it comes to accessing tools, information and resources, while protecting John Deere's intellectual property rights and ensuring equipment safety,” AFBF President Zippy Duvall said.

Under the agreement, equipment owners and independent technicians will not be allowed to “divulge trade secrets” or “override safety features or emissions controls or to adjust Agricultural Equipment power levels.”

The firm looks forward to working with the AFBF and “our customers in the months and years ahead to ensure farmers continue to have the tools and resources to diagnose, maintain and repair their equipment,” Dave Gilmore, a senior vice president at Deere & Co. said.

Farmers are part of a grassroots right-to-repair movement that has been putting pressure on manufacturers to allow customers and independent repair shops to fix their devices.

In 2022, Apple launched a “self service repair” scheme giving customers the ability to replace their own batteries, screens and cameras of recent iPhones.

The European Union and UK have policies enforcing manufacturers to make spare parts available to customers and independent companies for some electronics.

“Consumers have long been complaining that products not only tend to break down faster than they used to, but that repairing them is often too costly, difficult to arrange for lack of spare parts, and sometimes impossible,” according to the European Parliamentary Research Service.

Some US states like New York and Massachusetts have passed similar measures. President Biden signed an executive order in 2021 calling on the Federal Trade Commission to draw up a countrywide policy allowing customers to repair their own products, particularly in the technology and agriculture sectors.