Australian farmers are the latest to join the growing right to repair movement in Australia, arguing that international tractor manufacturers are failing to provide access to software, tools and parts required for farmers to repair their own farm machinery.

With farming equipment becoming highly technological pieces of machinery in recent times, it has become increasingly difficult for farmers to have the tools or know-how to easily fix malfunctions or crashes.

This issue is multiplied by manufacturers failing to readily supply software diagnostic tools, guides and other tools required to perform repairs, meaning even those who know how to repair their machinery cannot do so without voiding their warranties.

Currently, the only workaround to this issue is taking the machinery to an authorized dealer, which may be hours away and cost an exorbitant amount of time and money to tow the machinery there.

Acknowledging that something needs to be done to assist farmers in this situation, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has opened an inquiry into the extent to which international manufacturers are failing Australian farmers.

As part of this inquiry, the ACCC released a survey for affected machinery owners to complete, focusing on the lack of affordable options for farmers needing to repair their farm machinery, as well as the ownership of the data collected by this machinery.

According to ACCC deputy chair Mick Keogh, the ACCC is looking to hear from farmers about their experiences buying, using and repairing farm machinery, having already previously to manufacturers about this issue.

“We’ve spoken to five major importers or manufacturers of large-scale farm machinery that operate in Australian and got a lot of information from them. We’re now interested in hearing a fair bit more detail from farmers,” said Keogh.

“We have heard from dealers who say that they have no issues with providing service, yet we hear from independent service providers that they can’t get access to the [software] diagnostic tools they need.

“In some cases, they can’t get access to the [manufacturers’] parts they need.

“Our concern is we want to ensure that competition is working, particularly in relation to issues like servicing. Otherwise, of course, we’re just operating with regionalised monopolies.”

The other issue to be raised through the inquiry is the question of who owns the information collected by the machinery on farms.

Currently, farmers are unable to back-up their historical data and take it with them as they move to a different brand. The data stays with the old manufacturer and can result in farmers being forced to stay with the one brand or lose a number of years of valuable data.

The ACCC has identified that this may lead to competitor brands being frozen out, as farmers will not want to change manufacturers and lose their data.

The ACCC hope that by initiating this inquiry that any manufacturers breaking the law are identified and dealt with, while putting all manufacturers on notice that they are aware of the situation.

Submissions for the ACCC inquiry close on Wednesday, 22 April. 

Source: ABC News | ‘Right to repair’ taken up by the ACCC in farmers’ fight to fix their own tractors

20 April 2020