The American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) and John Deere have signed a short memorandum of understanding (MOU) about right to repair.

John Deere has reversed its earlier closed position and agreed to make resources available to farms and repair shops: software interfaces to onboard diagnostic systems as well as specialized hardware and physical tools

The timing is somewhat interesting. CES just displayed Deere’s new robotic tractors.

A tractor that not only thinks, it sees. A tractor that’s always ready to work, no matter how early or how late. A tractor that lets you and your operators tackle other jobs, while it does its job… by itself.

Still needs someone to do repairs.

A more likely factor in the announcement timing is the Biden executive order of 2021 that authorized the Federal Trade Commission to fight “unfair anticompetitive restrictions”.

John Deere probably just reset the clock for new FTC policy by signing a MOU, but that small step still counts as a win. Regulation has sparked innovation.