Senators File Bill Creating A Right To Repair Farm Equipment
The FARM Act would give farmers and independent repair shops to access to the tools and information needed to repair agricultural equipment.
Three U.S. senators have introduced legislation that would create a federal right for farmers to repair agricultural equipment. Senate Bill 3068 is described as “a bill to require original equipment manufacturers to make available certain documentation, parts, software, and tools with respect to farm equipment, and for other purposes.” It was introduced by Senator Peter Welch (D-VT) on October 28th and co-sponsored by Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and John Fetterman (D-PA).
A copy of the proposed law obtained by Fight to Repair News reveals that the legislation, dubbed the Freedom for Agricultural Repair and Maintenance (FARM) Act, resembles similar legislation introduced at both the federal and state level in recent years.
Got a repair complaint? Tell us about it! 😠
Do you have a complaint about a manufacturer who is blocking your effort to repair your product? The Repair Coalition wants to hear about it! Use the link below to talk about the repair obstacles you’ve encountered.
If passed, the bill would require original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) of agricultural equipment to make available to equipment owners and independent repair professionals they may hire “on fair and reasonable terms…any documentation, part, software, firmware, or tool intended for use in order to diagnose, maintain, upgrade, reprogram, or repair farm equipment.”
OEMs will also be required to make available to owners and independent repair providers “on fair and reasonable terms, any documentation, part, software, or tool required to disable or enable a technological protection measure or other security-related function of farm equipment.
De-fanging the (Repair Killing) DMCA
Language in the bill also takes aim at Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), a nearly 30 year old piece of federal legislation intended to prevent digital piracy that made it a federal crime to disable software locks in products without typical “fair use” exemptions such as disabling software locks for the purpose of repair and maintenance.
The FARM Act corrects that (tragic) oversight: establishing that agricultural equipment owners or independent repair providers “may circumvent a technological measure that … controls access to a work protected under (the FARM Act)” if the purpose of the circumvention is to diagnose, maintain, upgrade, reprogram, or repair farm equipment. Farmers would also be able to disable software locks to “enable interoperability with any computer program … that controls the functioning of farm equipment” as well as “any product used to diagnose, maintain, upgrade, reprogram, or repair farm equipment.” Also covered: farmers access to ag equipment documentation, parts, software, firmware, or tools “intended for use in order to diagnose, maintain, upgrade, reprogram, or repair farm equipment.”
In fact, under the Act, OEMs must not simply allow their customers to disable software locks. They have to support it by providing farm equipment owners or independent repair providers “on fair and reasonable terms” the documentation, parts, software, or tools needed to “disable or enable a technological protection measure or other security-related function of farm equipment.” And the FARM Act de-fangs the provision of the DMCA Section 1201 that makes it illegal for anyone to share information or tools about how to disable software locks used for copyright protection, enabling individuals to “manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part” that is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of for use in circumventing technological measures intended to protect copyrighted material.
States: The Laboratories for Ag Right To Repair?
The FARM Act isn’t the first attempt to create a federal right to repair agricultural equipment. An “Agricultural Right to Repair Act” (S. 3549) was introduced in the Senate in February 2022. In 2023 Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez introduced a farm “Right to Repair” bill in the House. Later that year, Rep. Victoria Spartz introduced the “Farm Freedom to Repair Act” as part of the 2024 Farm Bill reauthorization efforts.
In addition, more than three dozen agricultural right to repair bills have been introduced in state legislatures since 2021. Those include Colorado’s HB23-1011, the Consumer Right to Repair Agricultural Equipment, which was passed in 2023 and took effect on January 1st, 2024.
The push for a right to repair farm equipment is driven by the shift in recent years towards agricultural equipment that relies heavily on embedded sensors and software to function. That has empowered OEMs to deploy digital rights management and software locks in ways that require special, dealer-supplied tools to perform even basic repairs. “When only the dealer can do a certain repair, that undermines choice, creates delays and drives up costs. In other words, when options for repair are restricted, farmers pay the price,” said US PIRG in a statement on the new law.
A 2023 study by PIRG estimated that providing alternative options for repair would save farmers 4.2 billion dollars annually.
Repair advocates celebrated the introduction of the new legislation. “We used the state legislative process as an incubator, and its come up with a very successful federal bill,” said Willie Cade, an agricultural right to repair advocate and board member at the Repair Coalition.
Cade said that the federal legislation addresses larger obstacles to owner based repair, like Section 1201 of the DMCA, in ways that state-level laws cannot. And, while OEMs like John Deere have recently changed their tune: introducing new programs and making promises to make equipment repairs less restricted and costly, the FARM Act legislation creates a legal right to repair agricultural equipment that is both permanent and comprehensive. “It closes the gap between what the (OEMs) promises are and what the reality should be,” Cade said.