Right to Repair: Open-Source Tractors Offer an Alternative for Traditional Small-Scale Farmers

Jack Algiere has always been a tinkerer. As a child in the 1980s, he would repair and swap out engines in the broken equipment on his family’s farm, often figuring out exactly what he was building as he went along. “It’s just part of growing up on a farm,” he said. “We made it work, and we made it.” Algiere grew up in an era when it was second nature for farmers to fix their equipment—before farm equipment manufacturers like John Deere and others started incorporating proprietary software, parts, and tools only accessible to authorized dealerships. Now, amid a growing “right to repair” movement pushing farm equipment manufacturers to shift their practices, some have gone a step further by calling for a new, production model altogether, built on an open-source system. Under this model, farm equipment is designed to be easily modified and repaired by relying on accessible, universal parts, while sharing or licensing the design specifications and source code.