Fertilizer producers Mosaic and Simplot say they support keeping countervailing duties on Moroccan and Russian phosphate fertilizer in the five-year review now underway. If the domestic industry had said it…
Deere Settles Class Action Right-to-Repair Lawsuit
Reuters reported on Monday that “U.S. agriculture equipment maker Deere on Monday agreed to pay $99 million into a settlement fund for farms and farmers that are part of a class action over costs and access to repairs. The case is part of broader scrutiny in the U.S. over so-called right-to-repair practices, with regulators and plaintiffs arguing that some manufacturers limit competition by controlling access to repair tools and software.”
“The settlement fund covers eligible plaintiffs who paid Deere’s authorized dealers for repairs to large agricultural equipment from January 2018, according to a document filed on Monday in the federal court in Chicago, Illinois,” Reuters reported. “In the settlement, Deere also agreed to make available to farmers for 10 years ‘the digital tools required for the maintenance, diagnosis, and repair’ of large agricultural equipment, including tractors, combines, and sugarcane harvesters, the filing showed.”
“The proposed accord requires a judge’s approval,” Reuters reported. “‘This settlement addresses the issues raised in the 2022 complaint and brings this case to an end with no finding of wrongdoing,’ Deere said in a separate statement.”
Deere Still Facing Separate FTC Lawsuit
While this case is now settled, Deere is still facing a separate right-to-repair lawsuit brought by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. The latest action on that case occurred in June 2025, when Bloomberg Law’s Benjamin Hernandez reported that “a federal judge denied tractor giant Deere & Co.’s attempt to get an early win in a government lawsuit alleging the company has a tractor-repair monopoly.”
“Judge Iain D. Johnston of the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois turned aside Deere’s argument Monday that the government’s claims were factually and legally insufficient regarding the company’s power in the ‘aftermarket’ for tractors,” Hernandez reported in June 2025. “The judge also rejected Deere’s challenges to the FTC’s constitutional structure, including arguments related to the Supreme Court’s 1935 decision in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, as well as the states’ standing and timeliness in bringing the case.”
Essentially, the judge ruled at that time that Deere must still face the FTC lawsuit.
What Repair Challenges do Farmers Say they Face?
NBC News’ Natalie Kainz and Adrienne Broaddus reported in April 2025 that “spring is planting season for Missouri farmer Jared Wilson. It’s his only opportunity during the year to get his corn and soybeans sown and sprayed. Not getting it right would affect his yield. But every year, he says, he struggles to get his John Deere equipment to do the job. Broken down combines, tractors and harvesters have cost him hundreds of thousands of dollars to fix.”
“Wilson and others accuse John Deere (in a lawsuit separate from the FTC’s) of blocking farmers and everyday mechanics from fixing equipment without going through John Deere dealers,” Kainz and Broaddus reported. “Although the company doesn’t prohibit users from fixing equipment themselves, the lawsuit claims it locks users out of repairs because of the limited access to software that only dealerships can access. The lawsuit says that makes most fixes nearly impossible. A lot like cars, the farming equipment is equipped with sensors.”
“The John Deere tractors, for instance, run on firmware that is necessary for basic functions, according to the lawsuit. If something is wrong with the equipment, a code will appear on a display monitor inside the machine,” Kainz and Broaddus reported. “The suit says interpreting the error codes on tractors, for instance, requires software that ‘Deere refuses to make available to farmers.’”
“Right-to-repair advocates say the digitization of agricultural equipment — with its various computers and sensors — has made self-repair almost impossible, forcing farmers to depend on the manufacturers. Wilson, for example, said he has to rely on his local John Deere dealership, which he said takes longer and charges more than an independent repair worker,” Kainz and Broaddus reported. “In 2019, Wilson said, a John Deere dealership had his fertilizer spreader in the shop for 28 days before it was fixed.”
