DEERFIELD, Wis. — After years of not allowing farmers to make repairs to the equipment they purchased, John Deere has given them the green light to make their own choices, but some have doubts.
On Sunday, the manufacturing company came to an agreement with the American Farm Bureau Federation to give farmers access to diagnostic tools and product guides to find their own solutions to equipment failures.
Deerfield area farmer David Smithback has been working on the farm for almost 50 years. A lot has changed since he bought his first piece of John Deere equipment with his dad in 1980.
Smithback said repairs nowadays aren’t so simple, so when he has a problem, the first thing he does is call his local John Deere dealer.
“They know what they’re doing,” he said. “Not saying we can’t but the professionals are still better than the guy that doesn’t know what he’s doing.”
However, not every farmer shares Smithback’s enthusiasm for the company, and some prefer to do the work themselves. It’s the reason farmers across the country are celebrating the agreement that was several years in the making.
Darin Von Ruden is the president of the Wisconsin Farmers Union and an organic dairy farmer from Westby. He said the move by John Deere is a step in the right direction.
“With some of the technology that’s coming up and not being able to have access to that has been a true frustration for farmers, so having that ability to fix our own equipment is good,” Von Ruden said.
Still, Von Ruden does have doubts about the agreement and said he would prefer to have laws in place to make the changes more permanent. He’s concerned the memorandum of understanding John Deere has with the AFBF is just a tactic to slow a push among “right to choose” advocates pushing for legislation.
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