The Federal Trade Commission said Wednesday that John Deere has agreed to a settlement that would require the tractor maker to give farmers and independent repair shops the same repair tools and information it supplies to authorized Deere dealers.
For farmers, the practical fight has been over downtime. Modern farm equipment is packed with software, and diagnosing a fault can require more than a wrench and a service manual. According to the FTC’s settlement materials, Deere must provide access to equipment and repair resources including software functions for reading and clearing diagnostic codes and pairing components with other software systems.
Those are the boring bits that decide whether a machine gets back into a field or waits for an authorized technician. Farmers and repair advocates have argued that limited access to those functions can slow repairs during harvest, when a delay is not an inconvenience so much as a direct hit to a farm’s income.
The settlement resolves a 2025 FTC lawsuit that accused Deere of unlawfully gaining and preserving monopoly power in repair service markets for Deere agricultural equipment. Under the agreement, the company must keep providing the required access, tools, and services for 10 years, with the FTC monitoring compliance.
Repair advocates treated the order as more meaningful than a check. Willie Cade, a board member at Repair.org, told WIRED by email that the order gives farmers “real hope” after years of right-to-repair organizing. Cade added that advocates would watch whether the requirements turn into actual working tools for farmers.
The Deere fight did not start with this case. Farmers have challenged the company’s repair restrictions for more than a decade. The FTC’s own push began in 2021 under then-chair Lina Khan during the Biden administration, when the agency voted to enforce repair rights more aggressively.
Deere has also faced private litigation over the issue. In April, the company agreed to pay $99 million in a separate class action case filed in 2022. Consumer and repair groups cited by WIRED said the FTC settlement goes further because it changes access to repair systems rather than only compensating affected owners.
Deere has denied that customers lack meaningful repair options. The company says it already offers service manuals, diagnostic equipment, and other repair resources. In its own statement on the settlement, Deere said the agreement matches its existing direction and “formalizes” its work to expand access to diagnostic and repair tools while giving customers more transparency.
That is the company version. The FTC order is less poetic: Deere has to make dealer-level repair capabilities available outside its dealer network, including the software-mediated steps that have been the choke point.
US PIRG, a consumer advocacy group, also welcomed the settlement. The group pointed to its 2022 complaint about Deere’s repair policies and said the FTC action gives farmers more options. Nathan Proctor, US PIRG’s right-to-repair campaign director, said people should be able to repair their own belongings and called the settlement a win for farmers and for “a more fixable world.”
This story draws on original reporting from WIRED.
