[Newsbot]

Title: Deere & Co. will allow farmers to repair their own equipment
Category: Tech
Posted By: DrCaleb
Date: 2023-01-09 06:00:24
Canadian

[Scape]

John Deere memo: Farmers have NOT won, but that won't stop the news from pretending they did.

[DrCaleb]

Didn't think it would be that easy.

[Scape]

[JaredMilne]

I realize I'm admitting I'm an ignorant city slicker by asking this, but how does Deere & Co. actually enforce this?

How exactly do they prevent Joe The Farmer from Wheatland County from using his own tools to repair a broken axle or a loose wheel well? Or does this only impact the computerized/motorized parts of their tractors, threshers and other vehicles?

Do they sue the farmers for trying to repair the machinery themselves? I'd have thought the tractors and other vehicles would be the farmers' legal property, which means they can do whatever they want with the machines.

[Scape]

Supply chain chokeholds. If you are the only game in town you make the rules. No other production chain can produced the quality tool for the required task.

Software updates can lock out the end user. Russians were killed by Ukrainian tractors they tried to seize and bring back to Russia. The software turned the equipment into a brick and it gave the gps location of where they we mustering and they called in drones.

No need to sue the farmer but this is used to have others think twice before supporting such ideas. It's a gag order.

[DrCaleb]

JaredMilne JaredMilne:

How exactly do they prevent Joe The Farmer from Wheatland County from using his own tools to repair a broken axle or a loose wheel well? Or does this only impact the computerized/motorized parts of their tractors, threshers and other vehicles?

Deere will serialize all the important components of the machine, and if any of the parts change, then a technician needs to come out and change the serialized inventory in the machines computer, or the vehicle will not move.

Change an air filter, and you have to pay hundreds of dollars to get a technician out to update the computer. Not even kidding on that.

JaredMilne JaredMilne:

Do they sue the farmers for trying to repair the machinery themselves? I'd have thought the tractors and other vehicles would be the farmers' legal property, which means they can do whatever they want with the machines.

They don't provide parts to the farmers. They require a service tech deliver and install parts. If the new parts don't get updated in the computer, the tractor doesn't move. The tractor may be legal property, but the farmer doesn't really own it as long as the manufacturer controls it.

BTW - this was a good thing when Russians stole equipment from Ukrainian farmers. They got the vehicles home, only to find them disabled. So that also means Deere can geofence the equipment, if they want.