Across the farm belt, the cost of keeping modern machinery running has become a flashpoint, as growers push for the legal right to fix their own tractors instead of relying on expensive, tightly ...

In fact, the craziness of this goes even further: In a 2015 letter to the United States Copyright Office, John Deere, the world’s largest tractor maker, said that ...

What do pissed off farmers and broken McFlurry machines have to do with each other? More than you’d think. Both are part of the story behind the modern right-to-repair movement. In this episode, Jason ...

The iconic image of the American farmer is the man or woman who works the land, milks cows and is self-reliant enough to fix the tractor. But like a lot of mechanical items, tractors are increasingly ...

I squatted down in the dirt and took stock of my inadequate tools. Over my left shoulder a massive John Deere tractor loomed. I came here to fix that tractor. So far, things weren’t going as planned.

How many people does it take to fix a tractor? A year ago, I would have said it took just one person. One person with a broken tractor, a free afternoon, and a box of tools. I would have been wrong.

From his tractor dealership in Mountain Lake, Minnesota, Kyle Smith, owner of Midway Farm Equipment, dispatches his mechanics miles away to fix farmers' tractors — repairs requiring much more than a ...

Kyle Schwarting and his family have been farming in Nebraska for generations. Until a few years ago, Schwarting and other farmers could fix and upgrade their own large farm equipment, including ...