The secondary market for decades old, low-tech John Deere tractors has been booming for years as farmers have sought reliable tractors that they can actually fix without having to deal with John Deere\u2019s repair monopoly. A Canadian company has seen that demand and came up with a radical thought: What if they made a new, repairable, \u201cno-tech\u201d tractor to solve what has become a gigantic pain point for farmers?Alberta\u2019s Ursa Ag says that it has been inundated with demand after announcing its tractor, which costs roughly half as much as a Deere and has the benefit of not being a repair nightmare. We have for years covered the frustration that farmers have felt as they have been locked out of their Deere tractors with digital rights management systems that prevent them from fixing their machinery, tractors that won\u2019t run because of minor sensor failures, and crops that literally die on the vine as they wait for an \u201cauthorized\u201d repair person to fix tractors during critical harvesting periods.\u00a0Ursa Ag markets its tractors as \u201cno frills\u201d and \u201cbuilt to last.\u201d Ursa Ag\u2019s Doug Wilson told me that the company designed the tractor because of a need in the marketplace for a new machine that isn\u2019t loaded with tech and is easy to maintain. The company follows in the footsteps of consumer electronics companies like Fairphone, which makes a repairable smartphone and Framework, which makes modular, repairable laptops. The demand Ursa Ag has seen is part of the backlash to manufacturer repair monopolies and the injection of technology and internet-connected sensors and terms of use into even the most basic of gadgets.\u00a0\u201cI talk to farmers every day and I hear from farmers every day about how they went out and bought machinery from 1987 so that it wouldn\u2019t have a computer on it,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cAll of this came from a simple discussion with a customer who wanted to be able to turn [the tractor] on at the start of the day, to use it, and shut it off at the end of the day. It needed to work, so that\u2019s what we built.\u201dUrsa Ag\u2019s tractor has been hyped in agriculture circles after Wilson showed the tractor off at a Canadian farm show and it was featured by Farms.com. Wilson said more than a thousand farmers have contacted him after that show, from roughly 30 countries. \u201cI got a handwritten letter from a farmer in France who doesn\u2019t own a computer and wanted us to mail him information about the tractors,\u201d he said.\u00a0He said the company has thus far made a couple fewer than 100 tractors but is working on tripling its production capacity and has seen a lot of demand over the last few months. For years, people who don\u2019t understand the repair monopoly issue\u2014that John Deere controls the parts production and distribution for its tractors, the software that runs its tractors, the diagnostics for its tractors, and the repair guides for its tractors\u2014have said that farmers should simply vote with their wallets and buy tractors from a different company. The problem has been that, until now, there hasn\u2019t really been an alternative company that doesn\u2019t have similar repair practices. Ursa Ag is filling that niche. Perhaps other companies will pop up to sell low- or no-tech, repairable appliances and gadgets.\u201cGiven the number of my customers that carry flip phones, I would say there is consumer pressure to back away from some of the technology that is unnecessary to perform everyday tasks,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cSo that is definitely transferable to dishwashers and washing machines, refrigerators. Refrigerators that have screens on them that’ll tell you what’s inside. It’s a little crazy.\u201d\u201cThat high-tech stuff, the million-dollar John Deere tractor has a place. It has technology that is well worth the money,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cBut that technology is needed for 5 percent of what a farm does. There are so many applications for tractors on farms that don\u2019t require technology. The technology that goes into even a calculator is not required for most farming applications.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"