Right to repair

At the 2023 American Farm Bureau Federation Convention in San Juan, Puerto Rico, AFBF and John Deere announced an MOU (Memorandum of Understanding). The American Farm Bureau Federation and John Deere announced a memorandum of understanding that will allow farmers to repair their own equipment. Micheal Clements tells us this comes after several years of discussionsSuggested lead: At the 2023 American Farm Bureau Federation Convention in San Juan, Puerto Rico, AFBF and John Deere announced an MOU that ensures farmers’ and ranchers’ right to repair their own farm equipment. AFBF President Zippy Duvall says the effort follows years of work by AFBF.

“This is an issue that has been a priority for us for several years and has taken a lot of work to get to this point. And as you use equipment, we all know at some point in time, there’s going to be problems with it. And we did have problems with having the opportunity to repair our equipment where we wanted to, or even repair it on the farm.”
 

David Gilmore of John Deere says the MOU will help farmers get equipment back in the field quickly following a breakdown.

“It’s vitally important that we have an opportunity for American Farm Bureau Federation and industry to come together to solve issues and opportunities that we have. Machinery and equipment and the products that our customers invest in are a large investment. And the opportunity for them to maximize the uptime of that equipment and minimize downtime is an important area of focus for our organization and for the industry.”
 

President Duvall explains what farmers and ranchers can expect as a result of the partnership.

“It ensures that our farmers can repair their equipment and have access to the diagnostic tools and product guides so that they can find the problems and find solutions for them. And this is the beginning of a process that we think is going to be real healthy for our farmers and for the company because what it does is it sets up an opportunity for our farmers to really work with John Deere on a personal basis.”
 

AFBF hopes the MOU will serve as a model for other manufacturers. Those discussions have already begun. Learn more at fb.org.