Farmers around the country have been hacking their way past the software locks that John Deere and other manufacturers put on tractors and other farm equipment, and the Farm Bureau lobbying organization has thus far been one of the most powerful to put its weight behind right to repair legislation, which would require manufacturers to sell repair parts, make diagnostic tools and repair information available to the public, and would require manufacturers to provide a way to get around proprietary software locks that are designed to prevent repair.

Farmers have been some of the strongest allies in the ongoing battle to make it easier for everyone to fix their electronics. This week, though, a powerful organization that’s supposed to lobby on behalf of farmers in California has sold them out by reaching a watered-down agreement that will allow companies like John Deere to further cement their repair monopolies.

In most states, the legislation would cover all electronics, which includes tractors, cell phones, computers, video game consoles, appliances, and everything in between. So far, this legislation has been proposed in 19 states, but hasn’t yet passed. In any case, the momentum and outrage behind the right to repair movement is real, and the Equipment Dealers Association (which represents John Deere and other manufacturers) has been anxious to show that manufacturers like Deere aren’t actively trying to screw over farmers, while continuing to do just that.

In February, the Equipment Dealers Association promised to make a few concessions—notably, the group said Deere and others would begin to make repair manuals, product guides, diagnostic service tools, and on-board diagnostics available to farmers by 2021. Notably, it did not promise to actually sell repair parts, and it also contains several carve-outs that allow tractor manufacturers to continue using software locks that could prevent repair.

This is what the Equipment Dealers Association voluntarily offered to do for every farmer in the country earlier this year. In the meantime, the Equipment Dealers Association has continued to fight against comprehensive right to repair legislation, which would end their repair monopoly overnight (it has continued to put out information sheets that say self-repair is dangerous, and that tractors are too complicated for farmers to repair themselves. An example of one of these is embedded at the end of the article.)

The most powerful lobby previously fighting for right to repair sold out its constituency for no discernible reason, by agreeing to a manufacturer-centric version of it that gives farmers literally nothing that they weren’t already going to get