Mills worries that those innovation limitations negatively impact U.S. economic growth. He intends to ask Federal Reserve officials to study that issue.

Rising costs

Mills said the inability to fix his own equipment is costly in many ways. It takes more time and travel to always go to a company-approved service and parts provider, and he often must buy new parts instead of repairing older ones.

There were several such broken parts in the back of his pickup Tuesday, including a slip clutch from his John Deere combine that was replaced by a new one costing $550.

Mills said that if an alternator went bad years ago, a repair might require removing three bolts, pulling it apart and installing a $35 part. “Now, we have to pay $1,200 for a whole new one,” he said.

When his combine refused to shut off in 2016, Mills said, “We had to drive five hours to find the ‘brain’ for it and it was the only one in the state.”

He quickly gave credit to the John Deere technicians who “came running” to get the unit quickly installed, but said that service is very expensive.