John Deere: The Steel Plow, Bricked Tractors and the Right to Repair Fight

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John Deere was born in Rutland, Vermont, in 1804 and built a reputation as a skilled blacksmith before debt drove him west in 1836 to Grand Detour, Illinois. Settlers there were stopping every few yards to scrape sticky prairie soil off cast iron plows. In 1837 Deere polished a broken steel saw blade from Scotland into a self-scouring plow that let the soil slide off. A partnership with Leonard Andrus in 1843 reached about 400 plows a year, and in 1848 Deere moved to Moline, Illinois, on the Mississippi, and production rose to 200 a month. The Panic of 1857 and a failed steam-powered plow nearly sank the firm, so Deere handed management to his 21-year-old son Charles Deere and son-in-law Christopher Webber. Charles built the branch house distribution system in 1869, and later leaders bought the Waterloo Gasoline Engine Company in 1918, launched the Model D tractor in 1923 and added combines in 1927.

During World War II, great-grandson Charles Deere Wiman left to serve as an Army colonel and direct farm machinery for the War Production Board, while Deere factories built M3 tank transmissions, aircraft parts, ammunition and mobile laundry units. By 2022 the company was showing fully autonomous tractors at the Consumer Electronics Show. Software locks on its machines meant a farmer who replaced a part needed an authorized technician to clear the code, and Deere defended this under Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Farmers turned to Ukrainian software from online forums to get around the locks. Deere signed a 2023 memorandum of understanding with the American Farm Bureau Federation, and Federal Trade Commission antitrust action led to 2026 settlements.

• After Russian troops looted Deere equipment from dealerships in Melitopol in 2022 and shipped it to Chechnya, the machines were disabled remotely.
• Company lore says Deere refused to repossess equipment from struggling farmers during the Great Depression.
• Without admitting wrongdoing, Deere agreed to pay $99 million to customers overcharged for repairs and to open diagnostic tools to independent shops for ten years.
• About 10,000 UAW workers went on strike in 2021, followed by layoffs in 2024 and 2025 and production shifts to Mexico.
• Deere's 1960s 4020 tractor dominated its market as the company expanded from Germany to Argentina.