The Right to Repair movement is generally associated with electronics, but its latest battle has been fought—and won—on an entirely different front: the ranches of America’s heartland. The issue at hand was a dispute between the Federal Trade Commission and tractor/farm equipment manufacturing company John Deere, and, specifically, a suit filed jointly by the FTC and five states against the company back in 2025. That suit was settled this week, and the settlement represents a resounding victory for the plaintiffs. The FTC’s statement about the case accused the company of “illegally restrict[ing] the ability of farmers and independent technicians to repair Deere equipment, including tractors and combine [harvesters].” That statement was issued by then-FTC chair Lina Khan, who has since been removed from the position by the Trump administration and replaced by the more “deal-friendly,” in the words of the New York Times, Andrew Ferguson. (She has since served as part of NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s transition team.) The simple fact of the commission’s decision to take up the fight against John Deere represented some measure of vindication for farmers who’ve spent a decade battling for the right to repair their own vehicles. And as per a 2015 piece for WIRED by right-to-repair activist and iFixit CEO Kyle Wiens, the question of technology isn’t as far from this dispute as one might think. Quoting a copyright exemption filed by the company, Wiens wrote that “because computer code snakes through the DNA of modern tractors, [the company argued] farmers receive ‘an implied license for the life of the vehicle to operate the vehicle.’”