John Deere has been tug-of-war with some of its farming clients for more than a decade, but 2026 is the year of checkmate: it will go down in history as the year of checkmate. Just a few months ago, the justice system already gave it its first slap for monopolizing repairs, forcing it to compensate farmers who for years had to pay for their repairs at a high price.
Now comes the final blow: the United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has ruled in favor of farmers’ right to repairand the agricultural machinery giant will have no choice but to make it easy for them: ten years of close surveillance so that it opens its diagnostic tools to anyone who has to repair their own tractor.
The sentence. John Deere must offer farmers and independent repair shops the same resources it already offers its authorized dealers for 10 years and do so in a fair and reasonable manner. The agreement also prohibits Deere dealers from retaliating against or discriminating against independent repair customers who actively promote the availability of these new resources.
Why it is important. The right to repair is an old acquaintance in technology, but in the agricultural sector with high-value specialized machinery it takes on another dimension: the time frame for sowing or harvesting is limited and if a tractor or combine is broken down for several days waiting for an authorized technician, that translates into a real loss of production. And the price of the repair is usually not cheap.
The FTC considers John Deere’s practices illegal and abusive by forcing farmers to rely on authorized dealers for repairs, resulting in increased costs and delays in service at critical times. Be careful because this sentence could set a precedent as a model for the application of the right to repair in other sectors such as the automotive sector.
Context. In April 2026 John Deere had already reached an agreement of 99 million dollars in a class action lawsuit with farmers who had already paid expensive repairs since 2018, thereby compensating them for the damage caused. Now the ruling requires a change in modus operandi: the FTC structurally requires Deere to make its repair services available to equipment owners and independent shops.
You can spend up to 450,000 euros in a new John Deere and even so, the tractor is not completely yours, because these machines are much more than four huge wheels, they have GPS, sensors, telemetry and proprietary software of the brand, here is the crux of the matter.
In detail. Deere has exclusive control of a fully functional repair software tool called “Service Advisor,” which it restricted distribution to only its authorized dealers, something the FTC qualified of “an illegal chokehold on essential repairs to farm equipment.”
Additionally, Deere will have to pay $1 million collectively to the five plaintiff states in antitrust enforcement costs, and will be subject to strict compliance monitoring for the next 10 years, a period that may be extended if the company fails to comply with the terms of the settlement.
Yes, but. The agreement is binding, has a defined term and a supervision mechanism to ensure compliance. But John Deere limits itself to saying that this measure only reinforces a “commitment of years” that, according to it, it had already been fulfilling. And we will have to see how it is implemented in practice: whether these “fair and reasonable” prices really are will depend on how strictly the FTC monitors compliance.
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Cover | Photo of chris robert in Unsplash
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