Farm machinery included in right-to-repair plan announced in federal budget

Consultation will begin this summer on a plan to make changes to Canada's copyright act that would implement a consumer's right to repair electronics, home appliances and farming equipment.

Cambridge MP Bryan May told CBC Kitchener-Waterloo that manufacturers have been taking advantage of a loophole in the Copyright Act that makes it mandatory for consumers to go directly to the original manufacturer to get their electronic appliances fixed.

"There's nothing illegal about it," he said. "The Copyright Act was written at a time when maybe the idea of the Internet of Things wasn't wasn't as understood. This simply brings the Copyright Act up to today's expectations and really the future of where we're at." 

"I don't know if you've seen these refrigerators that have digital screens on them. You can't change a compressor in one of those refrigerators, even if you have the know-how and the part," he says, due to digital locks in the refrigerator's computer code.

May adds technological protection measures (TPM) that are critical to protect somebody's intellectual property would still be in place.

A simple fix

Keith Currie, the President of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture (CFA) says sometimes farmers need to make a simple fix to a piece of machinery and can do the repair work themselves. But the current copyright act won't allow them to do so.

"It might be a simple electronic process that is affecting how your machine runs, that you could either unplug it or do a quick adjustment to it that allows you to finish the day or finish the particular harvest period that you're in," said Currie.

Harvest time presents critical challenges and vulnerabilities.

"[A breakdown might come] Sunday morning when you're out combining soybeans or corn and your dealer is not available to come and fix it for you. And rain could be coming on Monday so you know the ability to make sure that you can continue to do that work without jeopardizing the function of the equipment that you're using is really what we're looking for."

Farm equipment has been included in the right to repair conversation, as a lot of large machinery used out in the field and in the barns and greenhouses has digital technology

'There's a tremendous number of dairy farms [in the Kitchener-Waterloo area.] Many of the dairy farms now run with robots," says Currie.

"So a lot of electronics, a lot of sensors, they're they're reading ID's that the cattle have. So there's a lot of that kind of equipment that's within barns, within greenhouses, mushroom facilities that are very sophisticated."

Currie says farmers want to maintain their equipment to keep it functioning, and also ensure technical failures and faults don't make anything unsafe. 

The Canadian Federation of Agricultural will take part in the summer consultations expected with Canada's federal government.

He says the CFA hopes to reach an agreement similar to one currently in place in the U.S. where the American Farm Bureau has three memoranda of understanding with farm equipment manufacturers.