7 Likes
I thought I’d seen this before.
4 Likes
It’s certainly interesting for us and I imagine the guys over at IOTA too.
2 Likes
Not so much that farmers “like fixing their own equipment”, it’s that they really, really need to. Imagine it’s planting time – or harvest time, forecast for rain in a couple of days time so you need to get the harvest in before then or risk major degradation to quality and/or yield. Then your tractor breaks down. Something quite fixable, but JD don’t allow it. You phone the agents who tell you they’ll send a technician in a couple of weeks time. That’s an answer (and it’s the answer farmers get almost every time!) that’s going to cost you big, possibly put you out of business altogether. (Most farming runs on really thin margins.) What do you do?
And when the “breakdown” is that the tractor’s IP-verification unit refuses to allow the engine to operate because you installed a non-JD air-filter (so no crypto chip)… that’s just profiteering and unacceptable.
I know farmers who refuse to buy the newer IoT-style of machinery for this (and data-ownership) reasons, and it has resulted in a lively, thriving and lucrative local market in quality used machines. Values sometimes exceeding the cost of brand-new, crypto-crippled equivalents.
3 Likes