This isn’t cheap. A farmer might spend thousands of dollars on a simple adjustment they could have done themselves with the appropriate resources. On the other hand, this arrangement has proven wildly lucrative for manufacturers; for Deere, as an example, parts and repairs are up to six times more profitable than selling the equipment itself.
But money isn’t the only problem – it’s also a matter of time. Oftentimes on a farm, tasks like planting and harvesting have to be done within a window of just a few days when the moisture content, ripeness, or weather conditions are just right. If, god forbid, machinery breaks during that window and a dealership can’t make an appointment immediately, the wait can cut severely into the farmers’ annual yields and income.
There’s also the issue of privacy. Equipment manufacturers collect lots and lots of data about soil, weather, yields, and other factors, which they can then share with or sell to “affiliates and suppliers.” This intentional data sharing in and of itself is worrying for farmers’ privacy, but even worse is the possibility of hackers accessing that information. Just last month, a security expert found vulnerabilities in John Deere’s apps that would have allowed outsiders to download the company’s data on farm equipment and vehicle owners.
In addition to data breaches, there are other potential security risks. Because most modern tractors can be operated and shut off remotely, some farmers and experts worry that hackers could disable thousands of tractors at a time. Such a widespread disruption could affect the entire country’s agricultural production, threatening livelihoods and food security.
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