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NFU: Right to Repair legislation a way to curb OEM’s ability to restrict data

Legislation has been introduced into the US House that would require equipment manufacturers to provide farmers the information to repair their own equipment.

Aaron Shier with the National Farmers Union says the bill provides much needed transparency. “So that there’s parity in the repair space that farmers can do they’re their own repairs, because currently modern farm equipment is designed to require certain software tools to complete certain repairs, and so farmers can get locked out of completing repairs even if they can diagnose them.”

Representatives Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (WA-03), Joe Neguse (CO-02), Elissa Slotkin (MI-07), and Abigail Spanberger (VA-07), introduced the Agricultural Right to Repair Act, a bill to establish a comprehensive framework for the right to repair of agricultural equipment and defines what information OEMs are required to provide.

Shier tells Brownfield other efforts including laws at the state level and litigation, are underway, but a recent memorandum of understanding with several OEM’s doesn’t go far enough. “Our members at National Farmers Union tell us the MOUs are flawed because those fail to guarantee comprehensive repair access to farmers and mechanics.”

The American Farm Bureau Federation has signed a memorandum of understanding with John Deere, CNH Industrial Brands, AGCO and Kubota.

AFBF did not respond to a request for comment.