Page 22 2025 Logan County Spring Outlook LINCOLN DAILY NEWS March 2025 On January 15, 2025, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and the states of Illinois and Minnesota sued Deere & Company (John Deere). According to the FTC, “Deere has unlawfully acquired and maintained monopoly power in the market for certain repair services for Deere agricultural equipment.” What are the facts of this lawsuit? What are the opinions on both sides? How might this lawsuit affect the residents of Logan County? Read on to find out. Back in 2023, John Deere and the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) giving farmers the right to fix their own equipment. Before this MOU, farmers had to have their equipment fixed by John Deere dealers using authorized parts. This severely limited farmers' ability to get their John Deere brand equipment fixed and could lead to lost revenue if their farm equipment was still broken-down during harvest seasons. In addition, this was more costly for the farmers, as they were not FTC, Illinois, and Minnesota Sue John Deere able to look for local professionals to fix their equipment, instead having to pay the increased cost of using a certified dealer and more expensive parts. The current lawsuit regards the main tool that John Deere uses to diagnose and fix their equipment. This primary tool is known as the Customer Service ADVISOR tool. According to John Deere’s website, “ADVISOR is a digital database of operator and technical manuals.” This tool can be used to diagnose problems with John Deere equipment that may not be able to be diagnosed by your average mechanic. According to the FTC’s lawsuit, this tool is not available to farmers who purchase John Deere equipment and tools. Rather, the ADVISOR tool is only given to John Deere dealers. With this tool, John Deere dealers are able to diagnose problems that go deeper than a simple fix. Continued --
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