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Right to Repair

…modern farm equipment is getting harder and harder to fix because manufacturers such as John Deere won’t give farmers or independent mechanics access to what they need to repair the equipment outside of their dealerships. 

This is especially true of the software locks on the equipment that require access to dealership-only software to fully repair. A documentary by Vice cataloged how farmers have taken to hiring hackersand buying black market software to bypass the software locks so they can keep equipment in the fields. 

Nebraska farmers vote overwhelmingly for right to repair

I depend exclusively on the network of unofficial but highly skilled repair stores in India for my consumer electronic devices, including my iPhone and MacBooks. Apple’s official presence in India – even Bombay- via channel partners is slow, expensive and focused on getting you to buy a new device instead. But these devices are getting harder to repair. My non-retina 2012 MacBook Pro is vastly more maintainable than a new 2018 MacBook Pro, as is say an iPhone 5s versus a newer iPhone 11 Pro. Ditto for kitchen and such appliances – I’ve almost always bought the base version of a more expensive brand than a version loaded with gee-whiz. Repairability and longetivity is important to me.

Regardless, what seems to be happening with John Deere farming equipment is at a different level altogether.