The Right to Repair movement — which aims to allow farmers and independent repair facilities to access technical manuals, tools, and product guides to self-diagnose and self-repair machines while respecting intellectual property and legislated legal requirements of the manufacturer — gained another win today with the passage of Agricultural Equipment Repair Act by the Michigan House Agriculture Committee.
This marks a major step toward full passage of the law, which would ensure that farmers and ranchers in the state of Michigan have the right to access the parts, tools, and information they need to repair their own farm equipment without relying on the manufacturer to do the work. Under the act, known as HB 4673, tractors, trailers, combines, sprayers, tillage equipment, baler, or other personal property, including the digital electronics embedded or attached to the equipment being used on a farm or ranch are included.
The Michigan Farmers Union called it a win for farmers and ranchers everywhere.
“Michigan Farmers Union was proud to have worked closely in developing this bill and will continue to fight for its passage,” said Michigan Farmers Union President Bob Thompson. “I want to thank agriculture committee Chair Reggie Miller for standing with farmers in support of our Right to Repair our farm equipment. Farmers Union will continue to advocate for fair and robust access to equipment repair for family farmers in Michigan and across the country.”
As things currently stand in many states, an owner of agricultural equipment must seek diagnostic, maintenance, or repair services of the equipment from the agricultural equipment manufacturer.
Earlier this year, Colorado lawmakers became the first to sign a Consumer Right to Repair Agriculture Equipment Act.
And throughout 2023, the American Farm Bureau Federation has made a big push in this space, signing memorandums of understanding with John Deere, CNH Industrial Brands (which includes Case IH and New Holland), AGCO, Kubota, and CLAAS of America to promote Right to Repair efforts.
It’s no minor issue. A report released by the nonprofit U.S. PIRG Education Fund earlier this year estimated that U.S. farmers lose $3 billion to tractor downtime and pay an additional $1.2 billion in excess repair costs each year.
Modern agricultural equipment is engineered to restrict repair access, often locking out farmers and independent mechanics. That forces farmers to turn to expensive dealer technicians for many fixes. Analysis of U.S. Department of Agriculture data shows that repair costs for farmers growing corn and soybean have nearly doubled over the past two decades.
Lack of access to independent repair can also lead to weeks or months of equipment downtime, during which farmers can lose their part or all of their crop, which can be even costlier.
