Deere and Co. is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of agricultural machinery and has spent years carrying out a curious fight: farmers hack their machines and they release security patches to prevent it. But why is this happening? It’s not so they don’t play Doom, that’s for sure.
Consumer associations have been asking companies for years to allow their customers to repair their devices from home and cheaply (and freely). And oddly enough, the John Deere tractor is heavy machinery that can be repaired with a computer… and unlock features that are paid for.
The American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) and Deere & Co. signed a memorandum of understanding on Sunday between farmers and the American company so that the latter can hack their equipment in order to repair them.
Under the agreement, equipment owners and independent technicians will not be able to “divulge trade secrets” neither “override safety features or emission controls, or adjust power levels on farm equipment“. That is, to access them only for repair purposes.
The future of the tractor is the satellites
John Deere CTO Jahmy Hindman has declared to CNBC that the world’s largest farm equipment manufacturer is finalizing taking to the stars with an aerospace partner.
The objective is create a geospatial map that farmers can use to better track crop productivity and yields. Undoubtedly, a brutal evolution for the agricultural sector.
Currently, farmers can use the data collected by their See & Spray device to know how much of the farm still needs to be fertilized, but John Deere wants to go a step further with its own satellites, giving even more precise information.
