‘Farmers have been fixing their own equipment as long as they have been farming …,’ said Aaron Lehman, a fifth-generation farmer. Photograph: Patrick T Fallon/Bloomberg via Getty Images View image in fullscreen ‘Farmers have been fixing their own equipment as long as they have been farming …,’ said Aaron Lehman, a fifth-generation farmer. Photograph: Patrick T Fallon/Bloomberg via Getty Images US news ‘Preserve the stuff we own’: how right-to-repair laws are surging across the US Federal and state lawmakers have proposed several bills to make it easier for owners to fix items such as phones, cars, wheelchairs and more
Prefer the Guardian on Google Aaron Lehman is the fifth generation to run his family farm in central Iowa . He uses six tractors and grows corn, soybeans, oats and hay on 500 acres.
He enjoys it because “the time you put in, the money you put in, the things you learn can be put to immediate use to benefit your farm and benefit your family”, Lehman, 58, said.
Still, he cannot entirely shape his own destiny. He would like to upgrade his tractors to ones that are more fuel efficient and collect data on the rate at which fertilizer is applied, among other information.
But he said he has been reluctant to purchase the expensive equipment in part because manufacturers make it difficult for farmers to repair the machines themselves.
“Farmers have been fixing their own equipment as long as they have been farming, and it’s essential to the sustainability of our farms that we be able to have that control over the equipment,” said Lehman, who is also president of the Iowa Farmers Union.
Read more He hopes farmers can gain more agency over their equipment through bipartisan state legislation that would require manufacturers to make documents, parts, software, firmware and tools available to independent repair facilities and consumers at “fair and reasonable terms and costs”.
Federal and state lawmakers across the US have proposed dozens of similar so-called “right-to-repair” pieces of legislation that would make it easier for individuals to fix cars, phones and wheelchairs, among other items.
While critics of the right-to-repair movement and some industry leaders argue that such bills create environmental risks and allow people to steal intellectual property, supporters say they are needed because corporations have monopolized control over repairs, forcing customers to either pay a large sum to the company or just buy new products.
The wave of new legislation, they say, would return more power to the people.
“We think it is common sense that when stuff breaks, you should be able to fix it,” said Nathan Proctor, senior director of the right-to-repair campaign for the consumer advocacy group PIRG.
The right-to-repair movement originated in the 1920s, when automotive companies such as General Motors intentionally made vehicle repairs difficult to encourage new purchases, according to a report from EBSCO.
Fast forward to 2001, when House Democrats and Republicans tried and failed to pass legislation that would have required the automakers to share the necessary information to diagnose, service and repair vehicles.
Lawmakers continued to push for such measures. In 2012, Massachusetts became the first state to approve an automotive right-to-repair bill. Auto manufacturers and aftermarket groups then reached an agreement in 2014 to provide independent repair shops the information, data and tools needed to fix their cars.
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