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An FTC lawsuit accuses the agriculture machinery giant of illegal repair restrictions that allegedly inflate costs and deny farmers timely equipment fixes. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), along with attorneys general from Illinois and Minnesota, filed a lawsuit against John Deere manufacturer Deere and Company on Wednesday, Jan. 15, charging the agriculture machinery giant with engaging in practices that allegedly force farmers to rely on its authorized dealers for critical equipment repairs. According to the FTC’s complaint, these alleged tactics have inflated costs for American farmers and deprived them of the ability to quickly fix the tractors and combines they...

Oh, Deere The largest farming-equipment manufacturer in the world, John Deere, unveiled a new crop of autonomous tractors and trucks at CES 2025 earlier this week, as the heavy-machinery giant looks to capitalize on the buzz around all things self-driving. If your immediate thought is that this sounds like a job killer... it is. John Deere has talked up its machines’ capabilities for precisely that purpose: to help alleviate some of the labor-shortage issues that farming faces, with the company’s chief technology officer, Jahmy Hindman, saying that “there is not enough available and skilled labor” to do the kind of...

Modern tractors rely on precise GPS coordinates to navigate fields. But with charged particles distorting radio signals from GPS satellites, some of them started acting erratically, stopping abruptly or weaving back and forth. "I would guess 80 percent or more of all farmers in the Midwest use at least basic GPS for something — whether it's auto-steer or yield mapping," John Deere service manager Ethan Smidt told SpaceWeather. "At least 50 percent of all farmers are VERY reliant on GPS and use it on every machine all year long." During particularly violent solar storms, charged particles fill the Earth's ionosphere,...

Farmers from across the UK have brought their tractors to Westminster to protest the government's planned changes to inheritance tax for agricultural businesses The new measures were announced in the latest budget in October and sparked immediate anger from the farming community The initial announcement saw an estimated 13,000 people come out in protest against the new policies, with support coming from TV personality Jeremy Clarkson as well as party leaders Kemi Badenoch, Sir Ed Davey and Nigel Farage Tractors lined up on Whitehall this morning, followed by speeches and a slow drive around central London The protest came simultaneously...

ohn Deere says they plan to lay off an additional 287 workers. However, the company insists that those jobs are not being moved to Mexico.. “It is important to note these layoffs are due to reduced demand for the products produced at these facilities. They are not related to production moves,” the company wrote in a statement to KWQC-TV. “As we have repeatedly stated, layoffs this fiscal year are due to the weakening farm economy and a reduction in customer orders for our equipment.” John Deere had already announced the layoffs of more than 600 employees at three production plants...

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Nobody should doubt Chief of the General Staff of the Polish Armed Forces General Rajmund Andrzejczak’s intentions or suspect that he’s a so-called “Russian agent” since he sincerely wants the West to win its proxy war with Russia in Ukraine, but he’s also very worried that it might lose unless his side acknowledges the unpopular truths that he just shared since the failure to do so could doom Kiev to defeat.The last time that Chief of the General Staff of the Polish Armed Forces General Rajmund Andrzejczak generated media attention was in late January after he elaborated on how formidable...

Hundreds of tractors driven by angry farmers protesting a plan to cut nitrate levels converged on Brussels on Friday, creating major traffic disruption in Belgium's capital city. The BB farmers union and several others combined efforts to gather more than 2,700 farm vehicles, according to Brussels police. Several major roads in Brussels were closed and police warned that disruptions could last until the end of the day, recommending that people use public transportation instead of personal cars. The Flemish regional government is struggling to find a deal to cut nitrate pollution over farmers’ objections that it would put many out...

On Colorado’s northeastern plains, where the pencil-straight horizon divides golden fields and blue sky, a farmer named Danny Wood scrambles to plant and harvest proso millet, dryland corn and winter wheat in short, seasonal windows. That is until his high-tech Steiger 370 tractor conks out. The tractor’s manufacturer doesn’t allow Wood to make certain fixes himself, and last spring his fertilizing operations were stalled for three days before the servicer arrived to add a few lines of missing computer code for $950. “That’s where they have us over the barrel; it’s more like we are renting it than buying it,”...

One of the world’s top manufacturers and distributors of agricultural equipment announced Thursday that a ransomware attack impacted operations. Duluth, Georgia-based AGCO Corp. released a statement that some of its manufacturing plants have slowed production for several days because of a ransomware attack. “AGCO is still investigating the extent of the attack, but it is anticipated that its business operations will be adversely affected for several days and potentially longer to fully resume all services depending upon how quickly the Company is able to repair its systems,” AGCO’s statement read. AGCO has an extensive portfolio of machines and equipment manufacturers...

President Trump lauded the partial trade agreement he struck with China this week, calling it the “greatest and best” deal in a tweet Saturday morning. As part of the deal -- which Trump and President Xi Jinping could sign as soon as next month -- China agreed to raise its agricultural purchases to between $40 billion and $50 billion from $8 billion to $16 billion and to make certain reforms on intellectual property and financial services. The U.S. will not raise tariffs on Oct. 15 from 25 percent to 30 percent. It’s still unclear whether Trump plans to halt another...

Farmers — tired of being blamed for climate change — drive tractor convoy to The Hague, causing record-breaking rush hour in the NetherlandsOctober 01, 2019A plow on the front of one tractor was spray-painted with the words, 'How dairy you'Farmers in the Netherlands are ticked off over claims that they should be held responsible for nitrogen oxide emissions, so much so that police said 2,200 joined a convoy of tractors storming The Hague in protest on Tuesday. Reuters reported that the agriculture activists caused "the worst morning commute in Dutch history."In the midst of the country's efforts to curb carbon...

Smart Ag introduced the concept of an autonomous tractor pulling a grain cart at the 2018 Farm Progress Show in Boone, Iowa. However, due to weather conditions and a few glitches here and there, it didn’t do much actual demonstrating a year ago. A new and improved version is ready to roll, and spokespeople say they intend to have it operating so 2019 Farm Progress Show visitors can see its potential in Decatur, Ill., Aug. 27-29. “We will be participating in the Ride ’n’ Drive display area at the show,” says Tim Norris, Eastern regional business director for Smart Ag....

To avoid the draconian locks that John Deere puts on the tractors they buy, farmers throughout America's heartland have started hacking their equipment with firmware that's cracked in Eastern Europe and traded on invite-only, paid online forums. Tractor hacking is growing increasingly popular because John Deere and other manufacturers have made it impossible to perform "unauthorized" repair on farm equipment, which farmers see as an attack on their sovereignty and quite possibly an existential threat to their livelihood if their tractor breaks at an inopportune time. "When crunch time comes and we break down, chances are we don't have time...

Lisa Leiter talks with UIC finance professor Robert Chirinko about the chances of Caterpillar leaving Illinois and what impact that would have on the state.

Spc. Courtney Brown, Delta Troop, 3/73 Cav., 1st BCT, 82nd Airborne Div., drives one of the tractors delivered to Iraqi farmers, Dec. 22, in Sununi. Photo by Spc. Crystal Witherspoon, 3rd Infantry Division. FOB MAREZ — To help them reap a bountiful harvest next season, U.S. Soldiers here recently delivered two large tractors and two mid-size combines to local farmers in Sununi. Because farming, a very essential contributor to Sununi's economic success, has been rather hard for the workers due to a lack of farming supplies, the U.S. State Department’s Provincial Reconstruction Team here has been making plans since September...

One of 14 ArmaTrac 602 tractors presented to local sheiks in the Lutifiyah Nahia during a ceremony on Combat Outpost Meade, March 5. Photo by Pfc. Evan Loyd, 1st Armored Division Public Affairs. COMBAT OUTPOST MEADE — Multi-National Division—Baghdad Soldiers presented 14 new tractors to local Shaykhs from the Lutifiyah Nahia during a ceremony here, March 5. Each ArmaTrac 602 tractor should help to cultivate an area over 25,000,000 square feet.  Troops from Task Force 4th Battalion, 27th Field Artillery, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division used funds from the Commander’s Emergency Response Program to purchase the 14 new...

Sonya Rinker was looking for a guy: someone who was kind, respectful and had a special place in his heart ... for tractors. She wanted a man who could share the thrill of a good tractor-pull show, who could see beauty in a shiny row of green and yellow of John Deere tractors. She didn't know that somewhere along these rolling Pennsylvania hills, there was such a man, a shy guy named Tom with two vintage Deere tractors. He had been looking for a gal, someone who'd put up with his milking cows at 3 a.m. and his six-day work...

Local residents who want to add their two cents about the proposed Interstate 69 construction won't have to fill their tanks to do it. TxDOT is coming to Longview. The Texas Department of Transportation is holding 46 public hearings this month in East and South Texas along the planned corridor, including Tuesday's meeting in Longview. The hearings will give Texans a chance to comment and ask questions about the proposed Interstate 69/Trans-Texas Corridor, a collection of passenger and freight roadways, utility and rail lines from Texarkana to the Rio Grande Valley. A draft environmental impact statement released in November suggests...

A New Week....Well, almost....Will the Wall Street jitters continue??Will, FINALLY, steps be taken to end the judicial log jam in the Senate??Will the Dems, under Dr. Dean, begin to control their wacko elements??Just a few questions to ponder....We will not tire, we will not falter, and we will not fail!