What looks wrong
Equipment sold as the thing a farmer owns, maintains, and fixes when the season will not wait.
What’s actually going on
Modern Deere machines need software tools to finish ordinary repairs. In January 2023 Deere and the American Farm Bureau Federation signed a memorandum of understanding promising farmers and independents access to manuals, tools, and software on 'fair and reasonable' terms. In the same document, Farm Bureau agreed to discourage right-to-repair bills that went further. National Farmers Union called the pact non-binding and full of exits. The object of the vote is the lock, not a farmer.
A broken combine in July is not a lifestyle complaint. It is a clock. For a generation of Deere machines, finishing a repair has meant more than a wrench. It has meant dealer software that can clear a code, calibrate a part, or talk to the engine computer.
On 8 January 2023 Deere and the American Farm Bureau Federation signed an MOU. Deere promised timely electronic access to the manuals, software, and specialty tools needed to operate, maintain, repair, or upgrade equipment, including to independent shops, on fair and reasonable terms. That sentence is the one the press release led with.
Further down, Farm Bureau agreed to encourage state bureaus not to introduce or support federal or state right-to-repair bills that imposed duties beyond the MOU. Either side could walk if a law passed. National Farmers Union's public response: one manufacturer, no binding enforcement, a 30-day exit, and a deal that 'falls far short' of a statute. The hypocrisy, if you vote that way, is the porch-talk of ownership next to a file that treats legislation as the thing to prevent.
Source: American Farm Bureau–John Deere right-to-repair MOU, 8 January 2023 (PDF). We quote the public record. A settlement is not always an admission.