Right to Repair

A modern tractor is a computer that happens to pull a plow, and the software inside it belongs to the manufacturer — not the farmer who paid six figures to own the machine. When a sensor fails mid-harvest, proprietary diagnostic locks can force growers to wait days for an authorized dealer instead of making the kind of repair farmers handled themselves for a century.

Right to repair is the fight to change that. It pits growers, independent mechanics, and repair advocates against equipment makers whose service revenue depends on the lock-in. The pressure has produced voluntary manufacturer commitments, Federal Trade Commission scrutiny, and a wave of state-level repair bills — but promises on paper have repeatedly fallen short of tools farmers can actually use.

This pillar tracks the legislation, the litigation, and the workarounds. We cover which repair bills advance and which die quietly, what the manufacturers actually deliver versus announce, and how growers keep their machines running while the law catches up.