The Federal Trade Commission and the Agriculture Department on Wednesday opened a joint public inquiry into competition in the farm equipment market, asking farmers and repair shops to document what barriers they face in getting equipment and keeping it running.
The request for information responds to a growing number of complaints USDA has received from farmers about obstacles to buying equipment and getting it serviced, according to the FTC. It covers manufacturing and distribution, including potential anticompetitive conduct.
“Everyday I hear from farmers and far too often they bring up the restrictions they face in being able to repair their own equipment,” Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said on X. “Added costs and lost labor time are the result of these misguided restrictions for our farmers and ranchers.”
FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson said in a social media post that the agency especially wants to hear from “independent repair providers, farmers, or manufacturing industry insiders willing to describe their firsthand experiences or provide documents. The concerns of America’s farmers deserve to be heard.”
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The Trump administration has been active in recent weeks in reaching out to farmers, as high input prices stemmed from the war in Iran and a reignited trade war with Canada, a major trade partner in American agriculture.
Republicans have been forced to invest in unexpected races, with a Senate GOP PAC putting $14 million to support incumbent Sen. Roger Marshall in Kansas.
President Donald Trump also announced new rules to lower the record-high price of diesel at a rally in Nebraska this week, the biggest single point of frustration for many farmers. The administration also announced new rules to allow ranchers further ability to process and sell their own meat, after upsetting the group by announcing hundreds of thousands of pounds of below-market-priced beef from Brazil and Argentina.
In the announcement, the FTC touted two previous antitrust actions launched during the Biden administration. In July, the agency and five states settled an antitrust case over Deere & Company’s repair restrictions, which the FTC says secures farmers’ right to repair their own Deere equipment. The FTC also settled with Corteva last month, alongside 12 states, over alleged anticompetitive conduct in pesticides.
Ferguson said on social media that farmers “shouldn’t have to overcome artificial service barriers to keep their farm machinery running, or pay inflated prices for critical equipment.”
“And they shouldn’t suffer retaliation for fixing their own equipment, or shopping around for better prices,” Ferguson wrote.
The move comes the day after the Justice Department and USDA announced a new memorandum of understanding that says competition in the agriculture input sector is one of their highest priorities.
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