The U.S. Government Forces John Deere to Let Farmers Fix Their Own Tractors

The Federal Trade Commission and five states have settled their lawsuit against John Deere, requiring the farm equipment maker to give farmers and independent repair shops the same repair tools that it currently reserves for its own authorized dealers FTC.

The settlement lasts for 10 years initially, with monitoring and reporting obligations that could extend beyond that if Deere fails to follow through Engadget. The FTC and five states filed suit in January 2025, saying Deere's policies forced farmers and independent repair shops to pay higher prices for service that Deere's own dealers could perform more cheaply FTC.

FTC Chairman Andrew N. Ferguson said the settlement will let American farmers benefit from having multiple repair options instead of being locked into Deere's dealer network FTC Chairman Statement. Deere has said the settlement includes no admission that the company did anything wrong, a position it stated when responding to the lawsuit in January 2025 and repeated as recently as June 2026 John Deere.

Nathan Proctor, senior right-to-repair campaign director at US PIRG, called the outcome "a win for farmers and all of us who want a more fixable world" Engadget.

What actually changes

For years, Deere has been the only one allowed to have the diagnostic software that modern tractors and combines need in order to run properly. This software reads error codes, adjusts sensors, and allows parts to be swapped in. A farmer or an independent repair shop could fix mechanical problems — a broken belt, a worn bearing — but anything involving the computer system required calling a Deere technician, even for simple jobs.

Modern farm equipment relies heavily on software and GPS guidance systems. That means many repairs simply cannot happen without access to Deere's proprietary tools. Under the settlement, farmers and independent repair shops will now have the same access to these diagnostic and repair tools that Deere's own dealers have always had.

This is the same issue that has played out across many industries over the past decade — smartphones, medical devices, appliances. But the stakes are particularly high in agriculture. A combine sitting idle during harvest season while waiting for a dealer technician to arrive can cost a farmer tens of thousands of dollars. That economic pressure is what has made farm equipment repair one of the most prominent battlegrounds in the broader right-to-repair movement.

How the settlement works

The 10-year term with the ability to extend it if Deere breaks the rules is an important design choice. Rather than simply ending after a set period regardless of whether Deere complies, the FTC has given itself a reason to keep watching. The settlement includes ongoing reporting and monitoring requirements, though the exact details of how often Deere must report and what information it must provide have not yet been made public.

Deere's statement that the settlement includes no admission of wrongdoing is standard in FTC settlements. It is a way for companies to settle a case without taking responsibility for past behavior. What matters is what Deere is required to do going forward, not how either side characterizes what happened before.

The bigger picture

This settlement comes during a larger push for right-to-repair rules at the state level. Colorado, New York, Minnesota, and other states have already passed laws that address repair access for both farm equipment and consumer electronics. The FTC's 2021 policy statement on repair restrictions opened the door for exactly this kind of enforcement action, treating software locks as potential unfair business practices rather than simply a private matter between a company and its dealers.

In my view, the farm equipment case offers a cleaner test of right-to-repair enforcement than we have generally seen with consumer electronics. The economic harm to a working farmer during planting or harvest season is measurable and immediate in a way that a delayed smartphone repair is not. This clarity may explain why the case reached settlement with clear, long-term obligations rather than a quieter outcome.

The real question now is how quickly and smoothly Deere's software and diagnostic tools actually get into the hands of independent repair shops. In other industries, settlements on repair access have taken longer to result in working tools on the ground than press releases suggest. The reporting requirements in this agreement give the FTC and the five states a way to check whether that is actually happening. With a 10-year term ahead, there will be plenty of time to see whether Deere stays in compliance.