UPDATE: Three days after publication, Deere provided a comment, saying that the company does not comment on pending litigation, but that it “fully supports our customers’ needs to maintain and repair their Deere equipment. did not respond to a request for comment. “That data can be used against that farmer.”ĭeere & Co. “It’s tied to the control that John Deere maintains on its overwhelming market share of equipment,” said Maxwell. Information about crop yields or soil fertility used to be estimated in government reports now it’s locked up on spreadsheets in Deere’s corporate headquarters.ĭeere doesn’t want to give customers access to the software needed to repair equipment because it weakens their argument that customers shouldn’t have access to their own data. That data is collected and held, and can be sold to partners like seed companies, leveraged to personalize pricing, or enable Deere to speculate on crops. Every action performed on the farm, from planting to spraying to harvesting, is tracked and categorized by Deere machinery. “John Deere is not an equipment company, they’re a technology company,” said Joe Maxwell, president and co-founder of the advocacy group Farm Action. There are several reasons, but the main answer can be found in the company’s emerging business model. The larger question, however, is why Deere refuses to relent on the repair issue, opening itself up to litigation, regulatory crackdown, and reputational risk, even as much larger businesses have switched course. “Their market dominance opens them up to these kinds of claims.” “Deere is in serious trouble,” said Nathan Proctor, senior director of the Campaign for the Right to Repair at the U.S. The similarities in the cases suggest a class action is brewing. The repair took less than three minutes with a part that didn’t even need to be replaced, just wiped off, yet it cost $600. Wells says that a sensor wire on his tractor malfunctioned when it got wet, requiring the software to be adjusted. In just the past few weeks, North Dakota–based Forest River Farms and Alabama cattle farmer Trinity Dale Wells both filed suit against Deere.
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