Louisiana Farmers are set to Benefit From a Bill Being Discussed in Washington

There’s an effort on the federal level aimed at making things a little easier for America’s farmers.

A so-called “right to repair” bill presented in Congress last February by Jon Tester, D-Montana would require agriculture equipment manufacturers to provide farmers with the information they need to either repair their own equipment, or hire their own mechanic to do it.

The bill would “require original equipment manufacturers to make available certain documentation, parts, software, and tools with respect to electronics-enabled implements of agriculture, and for other purposes.”

Acadiana farmer Chad Hanks says when something needs repairs on a tractor instead of fixing the problem himself, he must wait for the manufacturing company to repair the items.

“Where we are now with what technology has been implemented and tractors. A lot of times it may be as simple as a reboot of a computer and what happens in that instance is that we have all this money invested in this equipment we needed to work, we get to the field and we’re down for a day,” Hanks says.

Hanks also says the way things stand now, when something breaks, he can possibly miss out on a day’s worth of work.

“It’s expected to get up in the morning and go to work like we do, but if it goes down, we lose those 200 acres that we could have worked on that day, and it may rain tomorrow. So, there’s an old motto `Make hay when the sun shines,” Hanks says.