Congress Introduces New Agricultural 'Right to Repair' Bill With Massive Farmer Support

from the let-me-fix-my-shit dept

Back in 2015, frustration at John Deere's draconian tractor DRM helped birth a grassroots tech movement dubbed "right to repair." The company's crackdown on "unauthorized repairs" turned countless ordinary citizens into technology policy activists, after DRM (and the company's EULA) prohibited the lion's share of repair or modification of tractors customers thought they owned. These restrictions only worked to drive up costs for owners, who faced either paying significantly more money for "authorized" repair (which for many owners involved hauling tractors hundreds of miles and shelling out thousands of additional dollars), or toying around with pirated firmware just to ensure the products they owned actually worked.

Seven years later and this movement is only growing. This week Senator Jon Tester said he was introducing new legislation (full text here, pdf) that would require tractor and other agricultural hardware manufacturers to make manuals, spare parts, and and software access codes publicly available:

"We’ve got to figure out ways to empower farmers to make sure they can stay on the land. This is one of the ways to do it,” Tester said. “I think that the more we can empower farmers to be able to control their own destiny, which is what this bill does, the safer food chains are going to be."

The legislation comes as John Deere recently was hit with two new lawsuits accusing the company of violating antitrust laws by unlawfully monopolizing the tractor repair market. In 2018 John Deere had promised to make sweeping changes to address farmers' complaints, though by 2021 those changes had yet to materialize. Tester's legislation also comes as a new US PIRG survey shows that a bipartisan mass of famers overwhelmingly support reform on this front.

Tester's proposal is just one of several new efforts to rein in attempts to monopolize repair, be it John Deere or Apple. More that a dozen state-level laws have been proposed, and the Biden administration's recent executive order on competition also urges the FTC to craft tougher rules on repair monopolization efforts. In an era rife with partisan bickering, it's refreshing to see an issue with such broad, bipartisan public support, resulting in an issue that only had niche support a half decade ago rocketing into the mainstream.

Filed Under: farmers, jon tester, right to repair, tractors
Companies: john deere

Obnoxious Repair Monopolies Keep Turning Farmers Into Activists

from the this-isn't-going-away dept

Back in 2015, frustration at John Deere's draconian tractor DRM helped birth a grassroots tech movement dubbed "right to repair." The company's crackdown on "unauthorized repairs" turned countless ordinary citizens into technology policy activists, after DRM (and the company's EULA) prohibited the lion's share of repair or modification of tractors customers thought they owned. These restrictions only worked to drive up costs for owners, who faced either paying significantly more money for "authorized" repair (which for many owners involved hauling tractors hundreds of miles and shelling out thousands of additional dollars), or toying around with pirated firmware just to ensure the products they owned actually worked.

Six years later and this movement is only growing, thanks in large part to farmers who are tired of getting ripped off:

"Schweitzer wound up sending his tractor to the dealer. He says it took about a month for the repair to get done. His bill to replace the fuel sensor? Nearly $5,000. He says a local independent mechanic would have charged only a small fraction of that. Schweitzer was fortunate he had an old backup tractor, so his crop didn't get ruined, but the experience made Schweitzer eager to fight for change."

Hoping to appease angry consumers and lawmakers, in late 2018, John Deere and a coalition of other agricultural hardware vendors promised (in a "statement of principles") that by January 1, 2021, Deere and other companies would make repair tools, software, and diagnostics readily available to the masses. But then it turned around and ignored those promises completely. Meanwhile, the support headaches for many of these farmers continues, according to Kevin O'Reilly of U.S. PIRG:

"I myself called 12 different John Deere dealers in six different states, asking to try to buy the software tools and diagnostics that you need to fix your tractor, and at 11 of the 12, I was told that I couldn't buy them. Sometimes I was told they didn't even exist. And then the 12th gave me an email address to reach out to, which I had never heard back from."

John Deere certainly isn't alone in trying to monopolize repair, resulting in massive backlash and proposed legislation in a growing parade of states. But companies like John Deere, Apple, Microsoft, and others have been brutally effective in using grotesque and false arguments to scuttle such legislation so far. Including claims that right to repair reform poses vast privacy and security risks (not true, says the FTC), or that improving repair options emboldens sexual predators and rapists.

27 different right to repair laws were proposed this year, some of them improving repair options for essential medical equipment during COVID-19. But thanks to a coalition of wealthy companies fighting tooth and nail against reform (using a variety of dodgy and false claims), not a single one has passed so far. That's working out well for companies like Apple and John Deere, but it's abundantly clear that when your obnoxious repair restrictions keep turning rural farmers into hard-nosed activists, you might be facing a tough fight over the longer haul.

Filed Under: activists, eula, farmers, ownership, right to repair, tractors
Companies: john deere

Farmer Lobbying Group Accused Of Selling Out Farmers On Right To Repair Laws

from the do-not-pass-go,-do-not-collect-$200 dept

For the last few years, numerous states have been pushing so-called "right to repair" bills, which would make it easier for consumers to repair their own products and find replacement parts and tools. Not surprisingly, many tech companies have been working overtime to kill these efforts including Apple, which has tried to argue that Nebraska's right to repair bill would turn the state into a nefarious playground for hackers. Opposition also includes Sony and Microsoft, both of which enjoy a repair monopoly on their respective video game consoles.

Whether coming from Apple, Sony, or Microsoft, opposition to these bills usually focuses on the three (false) ideas: the bills will make users less safe, somehow "compromise" intellectual property, and open the door to cybersecurity theft.

Much of the current right to repair fracas began with the lowly tractor. More specifically, it started when John Deere decided to ban anything but "unauthorized repairs," inadvertently turning countless ordinary citizens into technology policy activists. A lengthy EULA the company required customers to sign back in 2016 forbids the lion-share of repair or modification of tractors customers thought they owned, simultaneously banning these consumers from suing over "crop loss, lost profits, loss of goodwill, loss of use of equipment … arising from the performance or non-performance of any aspect of the software."

As ordinary farmers hack their way around these restrictions just to make a living (often utilizing Ukranian firmware), California recently joined the attempt to codify the right to repair into law. But that effort was derailed this week with the news that California's biggest farmer lobbying organization decided to sell out its constituents and support a watered down version of California's proposal.

Back in February, the Equipment Dealers Association promised a few concessions in a bid to stall legislation; including making repair manuals, diagnostic tech and other service tools widely available to farmers by 2021. They did not, however, address efforts to hamstring third-party part sales, the use of DRM to lock down devices, and continued to battle right to repair legislation in numerous states. The California Farm Bureau (which again is supposed to represent the farmers on this issue) this week struck a "concession" deal with the Equipment Dealers Association that isn't much of a concession.

In fact, said "new" concession closely mirrors things the industry had already voluntarily agreed to:

"It is beyond comprehension...why the California Farm Bureau—which should nominally have the interests of farmers in mind—reached an agreement with the Equipment Dealers Association last week that enshrines the concessions the Equipment Dealers Association already agreed to, without seemingly getting anything else out of it, and without even getting it to move up its 2021 timeline."

“This agreement is especially important because whenever we can resolve issues that concern us without passing laws, everybody wins,” Joani Woelfel, the CEO of the Far West Equipment Dealers Association, said in a statement.

Well, not everybody. The core problems here owners have grown angry about (DRM, intentionally making it harder for third-party repair shops to get parts) weren't really addressed, and the "compromise" not only isn't much of one, but it kills the California effort for effective right to repair laws. Needless to say, activists looking for more meaningful action see this as a massive sellout:

"When it is up to the manufacturer to decide what information to share and what to withhold, you haven't addressed the problem," Gay Gordon-Byrne, Executive Director of the Repair Association, which is leading the right to repair movement, told Motherboard in an email. "We're also concerned that the agreement fails to mention anything about fair and reasonable pricing for parts, nor any mention of how farmers will get firmware, updates or patches."

"This agreement does not end monopolization of farm equipment repair,” Nathan Proctor, who is heading consumer rights group US PIRG’s right to repair efforts, told me in an email. “While it highlights how industry is feeling the pressure from Right to Repair, it also underscores that we need to do more if truly want the freedom to fix our property."

Unfortunately for hardware vendors and companies like John Deere, this isn't a fight that's going to be going away any time soon. The tighter companies like John Deere lock down their products with draconian DRM and annoying restrictions on what consumers can do, the more activists they create who previously may have never even gotten involved in such fights. As it stands, there are pushes for right to repair laws in nearly 20 states, and the tighter these companies squeeze, the more support for these initiatives they generate.

Filed Under: california, california farm bureau, circumvention, copyright, digital locks, dmca, drm, farmers, right to repair
Companies: equipment dealers association, john deere

T-Mobile Hires Ex-FCC Commissioner To Claim Its Competition-Killing Merger Will Be Really Great For...Farmers

from the synergies,-yo dept

As we've discussed, the looming Sprint T-Mobile merger is going to be decidedly ugly for American consumers. Global history has shown repeatedly that when you reduce the number of total competitors from four to three, you proportionally reduce any incentive to truly compete on price. Analysts have also predicted that anywhere between 10,000 and 30,000 retail, management, and administrative employees will lose their jobs as the bigger company inevitably eliminates redundant positions. Of course like any American merger, the two companies' CEOs have spent much of the last week trying to claim the exact opposite.

Still, it's going to be an uphill climb for Sprint and T-Mobile to sell regulators on the deal, even for an administration that seems to take pride in undermining consumers and small businesses. To try and sell it, Sprint and T-Mobile have been trying to make the claim that the only way to ensure we have the fifth-generation (5G) networks of tomorrow is if we sign off on their competition-eroding megamerger:

"It is critically important that America and American companies lead in the 5G era. Early U.S. leadership in 4G fueled a wave of American innovation and entrepreneurship that gave rise to today’s global mobile Internet leaders, creating billions in economic value and job growth. America’s early 4G leadership is credited with creating 1.5 million jobs and adding billions to the U.S. GDP. With 5G, the stakes are even higher – because 5G will be even more transformational."

This plays in handily to the Trump administrations protectionist efforts to ban Chinese companies from the American market in order to "win the 5G race." The problem is that 5G isn't some magic wand. While it will provide us with faster, lower latency and more resilient wireless networks, it's not going to magically cure the fact that American broadband is ranked somewhere around 62nd in speed, and consumers pay some of the highest rates for mobile data in the developed world thanks to a telco monopoly over the fiber lines that feed cellular towers.

Both T-Mobile and Sprint had been making it clear for months that they could deploy 5G easily and independently of each other. Suddenly we're being told that these next-gen networks are only made possible if we sign off on a deal history tells us will be arguably terrible for anybody other than AT&T, Verizon and SprinT-Mobile, who'll all have less motivation to engage in real price competition post merger.

To try and sell this "only merging can deliver next-gen networks" argument, T-Mobile this week hired former FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell to make the same point in an op/ed over at Fortune:

"The T-Mobile-Sprint merger will benefit our country and all Americans. From a farmer in Nebraska using 5G technology to better track crop conditions, to a small business owner in New Hampshire looking to sell products in the global marketplace, to a smart city with autonomous vehicles, all of us will depend on 5G. We can’t afford to lose the global race to develop this remarkable technology."

In the piece's fine print you'll find that McDowell is now a paid T-Mobile advisor, which is a nice shift from outlets that can't be bothered to highlight op/ed author financial ties to industry. Again though, there's nothing "magical" about 5G that helps create smart cities, next-gen agricultural tools, and the automated cars of tomorrow. Those technologies can still thrive on 4G networks, and again, while 5G is going to provide some notable evolutionary improvements, it's not some kind of mystical panacea, and its impacts on our overall economy are being absurdly over-hyped by companies eager to sell networking hardware.

There's numerous problems in the wireless sector that will persist throughout the "5G revolution," none of which get magically eliminated by reducing competition and killing tens of thousands of jobs. The merger doesn't magically fix AT&T and Verizon's backhaul monopoly. It doesn't address the fact that Americans pay more for wireless data that countless other developed nations. And it certainly doesn't solve the problem of regulatory capture, which is why American broadband (fixed or wireless) tends to be such a comical shitshow in the first place.

Filed Under: 5g, competition, farmers, fcc, lobbying, mergers, robert mcdowell
Companies: sprint, t-mobile

Big Ag Gets Ag-Gag Envy, Helps Bring In 'Seed-Preemption' Laws Across The US

from the local-democracy,-who-needs-it? dept

As multiple Techdirt stories attest, farmers do love their "ag-gag" laws, which effectively make it illegal for activists to expose animal abuse in agricultural establishments -- although, strangely, farmers don't phrase it quite like that. Big Ag -- the giant seed and agricultural chemical companies such as Monsanto, Bayer, and DuPont -- seem to have decided they want something similar for seeds. As an article in Mother Jones, originally published by Food and Environment Reporting Network, reports, it looks like they are getting it:

With little notice, more than two dozen state legislatures have passed "seed-preemption laws" designed to block counties and cities from adopting their own rules on the use of seeds, including bans on GMOs. Opponents say that there's nothing more fundamental than a seed, and that now, in many parts of the country, decisions about what can be grown have been taken out of local control and put solely in the hands of the state.

Supporters of the move claim that a system of local seed rules would be complicated to navigate. That's a fair point, but it's hard to believe Big Ag really cares about farmers that much. Some of the new laws go well beyond seeds:

Language in the Texas version of the bill preempts not only local laws that affect seeds but also local laws that deal with "cultivating plants grown from seed.” In theory, that could extend to almost anything: what kinds of manure or fertilizer can be used, or whether a county can limit irrigation during a drought, says Judith McGeary, executive director of the Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance. Along with other activists, her organization was able to force an amendment to the Texas bill guaranteeing the right to impose local water restrictions. Still, the law's wording remains uncomfortably open to interpretation, she says.

You would have thought that farmers would welcome the ability to shape local agricultural laws according to local needs and local factors like weather, water and soil. But apparently ag-gagging activists to stop them doing the same is much more important.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and +glynmoody on Google+

Filed Under: ag-gag, cities, farmers, local rights, seed preemption, seeds, states
Companies: bayer, dupont, monsanto

African Nations Agree To Plant Variety Treaty; Traditional Farmers' Group Shut Out From Negotiations

from the definitely-not-suspicious dept

Techdirt has been covering discussions to establish a harmonized pan-African legal framework for the protection of plant breeders' rights for a couple of years now, in particular the fears that this will benefit Western seed companies the most, at the expense of Africa's plant diversity and seed independence. As the African Regional Intellectual Property Organization (ARIPO) website reports, what is now known as the "Arusha Protocol for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants" has been agreed:

The ARIPO Protocol for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants has been adopted by the Diplomatic Conference that was held in Arusha, the United Republic of Tanzania on July 6, 2015.

…

The Protocol seeks to provide Member States with a regional plant variety protection system that recognizes the need to provide growers and farmers with improved varieties of plants in order to ensure sustainable Agricultural production.

Eighteen Member States of the Organization were represented at the Diplomatic Conference namely; Botswana, The Gambia, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, São Tomé and Príncipe, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Swaziland, United Republic of Tanzania, Uganda Zambia and Zimbabwe.

As well as those African nations, a number of international organizations took part in the discussions: the World Intellectual Property Organization, the EU's Community Plant Variety Office, France's National Seeds and Seedlings Association, the United States Patent and Trademark Office and the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants. The inclusion of representatives from the US, EU and French plant organizations is indicative of some of the key driving forces behind the Arusha Protocol. That stands in stark contrast to a rather significant absence from the talks: the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA), an association that champions "Small African Family Farming/Production Systems based on agro-ecological and indigenous approaches." AFSA writes on its site:

Despite AFSA's well-established track record of constructive engagement with ARIPO on the Draft ARIPO PVP Protocol, and despite it being a Pan African network of African regional farmers and NGOs, working with millions of African farmers and consumers, AFSA was purposely excluded from the Arusha deliberations.

This is not the first time that AFSA has been unwelcome at ARIPO meetings, as we reported last year. That's presumably because AFSA has long-standing concerns about the whole move towards giving plant breeders greater rights in Africa. Here's its view on the new Protection of New Varieties of Plants (PVP) protocol:

The Arusha PVP Protocol is part of the broader thrust in Africa to ensure regionally seamless and expedited trade in commercially bred seed varieties for the benefit, mainly, of the foreign seed industry. Multinational seed companies intend to lay claim to seed varieties as their private possessions and to prevent others from using these varieties without the payment of royalties.

Germplasm developed by farming households over centuries is increasingly under threat of privatisation; and ecologically embedded farming practices risk being destabilised and dislodged. The broader modernisation thrust of which the Arusha PVP Protocol is an intrinsic part, is designed to facilitate the transformation of African agriculture from peasant-based production to inherently inequitable, inappropriate and ecologically damaging Green Revolution/industrial agriculture. Such a transformation will lead to many farming households being threatened with marginalisation or extinction, without alternative options for survival.

While AFSA is worried that the new Protocol will harm traditional cultivation practices, supporters claim that it will lead to more and better plant varieties being created, to the benefit of farmers. That would obviously be welcome, assuming it isn't simply a cover for multinational companies to privatize and industrialize Africa's food production. Unfortunately, the refusal to allow the participation of representatives of traditional African farming in drawing up the new Arusha Protocol has to raise fears that this is precisely what is planned.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and +glynmoody on Google+

Filed Under: africa, aripo, farmers, plants, trade agreements, treaty

Monsanto Sued By Organic Farmers Who Don't Want To Be Accused Of Patent Infringement

from the patent-madness dept

Monsanto's incredibly overaggressive use of patents to corner the market on certain crops and to bully farmers has been well-documented over the years. Some of the really crazy stories involve Monsanto accusing farmers of patent infringement, because some of its "patented" seeds were used by neighboring farms, and the newly grown seeds were blown onto the neighboring property by wind, where they grew new plants. Now, a group of organic farmers fearful of being hit with similar threats and/or lawsuits have preemptively sued Monsanto asking for a declaratory judgment that they don't infringe, while also seeking to invalidate the patents. The full filing, embedded below, includes a description of why the farmers think that Monsanto's patents are invalid anyway, including the claim that Monsanto's modified seeds were not actually "useful" (it cites multiple studies debunking claims by Monsanto of the advantages of its seeds) and therefore, not patentable (since, in theory, patents are only allowed on "useful" inventions). Should make for an interesting case, though I would guess it won't get very far...

Filed Under: farmers, patents, seeds
Companies: monsanto