John Deere Didn't Just Sell Farmers a Smarter Sprayer. It Sold Them Another Bill.
The most revealing weakness in Wendover Productions' How Big Tech Ruined Farming is not its criticism of John Deere. It is the financial example supposedly proving how expensive Deere's technology has become. The episode gets the economics wrong in ways that undermine its own argument.
The $62,000 calculation doesn't add up
The video presents an Illinois soybean farmer operating 4,500 acres. It uses pesticide expenditure of $77 per acre, producing an annual bill of approximately $350,000. It then assumes See & Spray cuts chemical consumption by two-thirds, reducing expenditure to approximately $117,000.
But the calculation has two problems.
First, the $77 figure comes from University of Illinois agricultural economists' estimate of total pesticide costs, including herbicides, insecticides and fungicides. See & Spray selectively applies herbicide. Treating the entire pesticide budget as reducible by a weed-spraying system exaggerates the potential savings.
Second, even accepting every assumption in the video's example, the arithmetic does not produce its stated $62,000 saving.
- Original pesticide expenditure: $350,000.
- Remaining expenditure: $117,000.
- Chemical savings: $233,000.
- Sprayer and See & Spray equipment: $75,000.
- Remaining savings: $158,000.
- Subscription at $4 per acre: $18,000.
- Remaining savings: approximately $140,000, not $62,000.
That is before considering financing, maintenance, depreciation, additional operating expenses or the actual cost of herbicide rather than all pesticides.
The video does not explain the missing $78,000. More importantly, its starting assumptions are not a reliable farm-level profitability calculation.
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The supposedly median farmer has 4,500 acres
There is a more serious problem with the example: Wendover calls its hypothetical 4,500-acre Illinois operation the state's median-sized farm. The USDA's 2022 Census of Agriculture reports an average Illinois farm size of just 370 acres; its largest farm-size category begins at 1,000 acres, and only 10% of farms fall into that category. The median farm falls within the 50–179-acre category. A 4,500-acre operation is an exceptionally large business, not an ordinary family farm.
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That distinction matters enormously. The episode uses a very large operation to make a claim about the economics facing American farmers generally, then labels that operation representative. Large farms can spread expensive machinery and software costs across far more acres. The example therefore cannot establish what the technology costs, or saves, for the typical Illinois farmer.
One correction to the comparison above: the video's $62,000 figure is stated before the subscription. On the same pre-subscription basis, its own figures produce $158,000, leaving a $96,000 unexplained gap; after the $18,000 subscription, the result is $140,000. The $78,000 difference noted earlier compares figures from different stages.
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The technology works. The economics depend on the field.
Independent agricultural research does not support dismissing See & Spray as a gimmick. It does, however, expose how much the actual savings depend on conditions that Wendover's simplified example ignores.
Iowa State University tested John Deere See & Spray Ultimate across five soybean fields covering 415 acres in 2024. Herbicide savings ranged from 43.9% to 90.6%, averaging 76%, with approximately $6,500 in chemical savings, or $15.70 per acre.
The researchers identified weed pressure as a major factor: fields with fewer weeds achieved greater savings, while fields with poor early-season weed control achieved less.
Integrated Crop Management
The University of Arkansas conducted a separate three-year investigation beginning in 2022. Its researchers found herbicide reductions of 43–59% compared with conventional broadcast spraying.
But there was an important catch.
When the machine operated at low sensitivity, it sprayed fewer weeds and saved more chemical in the short term. Unfortunately, missed Palmer amaranth weeds produced seeds, increasing the weed population in the soil by 280% annually.
Researchers recommended high-sensitivity operation in most circumstances because it offered more reliable weed control. Their economic modelling estimated that a $25,000 upgrade could pay for itself after approximately 819 acres of treatment when used for two post-emergence applications in a season.
Arkansas Extension Service
This is a substantially more interesting story than simply saying AI saves farmers money. A machine can reduce today's chemical bill while creating tomorrow's weed-management problem if operated incorrectly.
What farmers actually pay
There is another useful piece of evidence that the video should have incorporated: what an actual farmer paid to operate the technology.
In March 2025, The Progressive Farmer interviewed Kody Came, a fifth-generation farmer from Salina, Kansas.
Came reported the following figures for his operation in 2024:
Item Cost per acre Total See & Spray operating cost $3.33 Chemical savings $2.52 Net additional cost $0.81His operating-cost calculation included the Deere subscription, depreciation, fuel and interest on the machine.
He considered the remaining 81 cents worthwhile because the equipment successfully controlled Palmer amaranth and its software was improving.
This is one farmer's experience, not an industry-wide average. But it demonstrates why chemical savings alone cannot establish whether a machine is profitable.
DTN Progressive Farmer
The subscription model is more complicated than $4 per acre
The $4 subscription figure was not invented. A June 2024 Successful Farming report identified See & Spray Premium pricing of:
- $4 per acre for soybeans and cotton.
- $3 per acre for corn.
- $1 per acre for fallow fields.
It also reported a $25,000 upgrade cost for a compatible sprayer.
Successful Farming
However, Deere's current published pricing has evolved. Its website now advertises a $28,000 upfront unlimited annual license or an Application Savings Guarantee charging $5 per acre not sprayed. These are different commercial arrangements, not interchangeable subscription figures.
John Deere US
There is another aspect of the business model worth investigating.
Deere's 2024 See & Spray license agreement required compatible machinery to maintain an active JDLink telematics service and connect with the Operations Center at least once every three calendar days. Equipment had to be registered within a Deere customer organization, and Deere reserved the ability to deactivate the software if the machine was transferred outside that organization.
The agreement also authorized collection of data from connected machines.
John Deere
That is genuine technological dependence. The sprayer is not simply a machine that a farmer purchases and operates independently. Its functionality is tied to Deere's software, account infrastructure and licensing arrangements.
The video identifies the general problem but misses an opportunity to show readers the actual contractual relationship.
The right-to-repair dispute became a regulatory matter
Wendover presents the repair controversy as a disagreement between Deere and farmers, with the company citing liability and safety while farmers suspect an additional revenue opportunity.
There was already an important development before the video appeared.
On January 8, 2023, Deere signed a memorandum of understanding with the American Farm Bureau Federation.
The agreement promised farmers and independent repair facilities access to Customer Service ADVISOR, technical manuals, training, diagnostic information and other repair resources.
But it did not simply provide unrestricted access to everything available to authorized dealers. The agreement specifically identified Customer Service ADVISOR, and the Farm Bureau committed to discouraging legislation imposing obligations beyond those in the agreement.
That distinction became important.
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In January 2025, the Federal Trade Commission sued Deere alongside attorneys general from Illinois and Minnesota, subsequently joined by Arizona, Michigan and Wisconsin.
The FTC alleged that Deere restricted access to its fully functional Service ADVISOR diagnostic software, leaving farmers and independent repair businesses with an inferior Customer Service ADVISOR tool.
The regulator argued that this arrangement restricted competition in repair services and increased farmers' costs.
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Deere rejected the allegations, calling the lawsuit based on serious misrepresentations. It pointed to its Equipment Mobile product and planned improvements to the Operations Center as evidence of its commitment to customer repairs.
DTN Progressive Farmer
Then came a significant development.
In July 2026, Deere and the FTC, together with five states, submitted a proposed settlement requiring Deere to provide farmers and independent repair providers with diagnostic and repair resources equivalent to those available to authorized dealers.
The proposed arrangement includes access to fault-code functions, electronic component reprogramming, technical manuals and troubleshooting resources. It also provides for regulatory oversight and reporting over ten years.
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Importantly, this does not mean repair tools become free. They can still be licensed, subscribed to or purchased on fair and reasonable terms.
Nor does the settlement constitute an admission of wrongdoing by Deere. The proposed order still requires court entry.
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There is also a separate $99 million class-action settlement concerning historical repair costs. Deere denies wrongdoing in that case too, and final approval remains pending, with a hearing scheduled for January 19, 2027.
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The original video was right to identify repair restrictions as a serious issue. But its treatment was incomplete. By 2026, the dispute had progressed from competing explanations to proposed regulatory remedies that directly address the access problem.
The family farm is changing, but ownership matters
The episode's argument about consolidation contains a real problem, but its language obscures an important distinction.
A family farm and a small farm are not necessarily the same thing.
The USDA's 2022 Census of Agriculture found that 95% of American farms were family-owned.
Its breakdown is particularly revealing:
Farm category Share of farms Share of agricultural production Small family farms 85% 14% Midsize family farms 6% 16% Large-scale family farms 4% 51%Between 2017 and 2022, small low-sales family farms declined by 10%, while large family farms increased by 40% and very large family farms by 65%.
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The underlying problem is real: agricultural production is becoming increasingly concentrated in larger operations.
But the story is not simply that corporations are replacing family ownership. A substantial share of production is moving into larger businesses that remain family-owned.
There is another useful detail. USDA data found that 66% of producers on large-scale family farms reported living on their farms. That does not establish where every landowner lives, but it complicates the video's picture of agricultural wealth routinely flowing to distant absentee owners.
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The narrator also argues that rural communities are losing economic activity because profits are transferred to investors elsewhere. That is a plausible concern, but the episode supplies no quantitative evidence establishing how much agricultural income leaves rural communities or how much of that movement is attributable to Deere's technology.
Technology did not invent agricultural consolidation
The video's final argument needs another distinction: a trend can accelerate without having been caused by the technology being discussed.
American farm consolidation began long before GPS guidance, artificial intelligence or John Deere's autonomous tractors.
The USDA Economic Research Service reports that the number of American farms peaked at 6.8 million in 1935 and declined sharply through the early 1970s. The agency attributes that earlier decline primarily to agricultural productivity growth and increased opportunities for nonfarm employment.
Since 1982, the decline has been considerably slower.
In 2024, average American farm size was 466 acres, only slightly above the 440 acres recorded in the early 1970s.
Economic Research Service
The USDA also reports that agricultural output nearly tripled between 1948 and 2023, driven by productivity improvements involving genetics, chemicals, equipment, machinery and farm organization.
This is not evidence that automation has no negative consequences. It is evidence that agricultural restructuring has several interacting causes.
Wendover places Deere's technological transformation alongside the decline of smaller farms and treats the relationship as an increasingly destructive force. But it never establishes how much of that decline is attributable to digital agriculture rather than longstanding changes in productivity, land economics, labor and farm organization.
That missing distinction matters. Without it, the headline makes a much stronger claim than the research establishes.
Closing verdict
John Deere deserves serious scrutiny. Its software-dependent machinery, subscription arrangements, data infrastructure and historical repair restrictions create genuine questions about who controls agricultural equipment after purchase.
But Wendover's strongest financial example is unreliable. It mistakes total pesticide costs for costs that a targeted herbicide sprayer can eliminate, misidentifies a 4,500-acre operation as a median Illinois farm, and provides a savings calculation that cannot be reconciled with its own figures.
Independent research shows that See & Spray can deliver substantial chemical savings, but those savings vary with weed pressure, operating settings, equipment costs and farm conditions. Some farmers achieve significant benefits; others pay more to operate the system than they save in chemicals.
And while small family farms are losing ground, the evidence points to increasing concentration within family-owned agriculture, not simply their replacement by distant corporations.
The real indictment of John Deere is not that agricultural technology has made farming universally worse. It is that increasingly essential agricultural technology can place control over machinery, software, repair and operating costs in the hands of a manufacturer whose interests do not always align with those of the farmer.
That is a stronger argument than the video's headline. It also requires better evidence than the video provides.
References
1. How Big Tech Ruined Farming — Wendover Productions, June 27, 2024. Original work examined in this critique.
2. The Rising Costs of Soybean Production in Illinois — University of Illinois farmdoc Daily, November 14, 2023. Establishes the $77-per-acre pesticide figure and clarifies that pesticide costs include herbicides, insecticides and fungicides.
3. 2022 Census of Agriculture: Illinois State Profile — USDA NASS, 2022. Establishes Illinois farm counts, average acreage and distribution by farm size.
4. Sprayer Pricing, Availability Back to Normal — Successful Farming, Karen Jones, June 3, 2024. Provides See & Spray upgrade and subscription prices, as well as actual self-propelled sprayer market prices.
5. Precision Spraying Technology — Iowa State University Extension, August 22, 2024. Documents the 415-acre field demonstration and variation in herbicide savings.
6. Precision Agriculture Research Measures Effectiveness of See & Spray Technology — University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture, John Lovett, March 10, 2025. Provides three-year trial results, weed-seed-bank consequences and economic modelling.
7. Sense and Act Technology Brings Sharper Precision to Spraying — DTN / Progressive Farmer, Dan Miller, March 31, 2025. Reports actual operating costs and chemical savings from Kansas farmer Kody Came.
8. John Deere See & Spray 2024 License Agreement, updated August 28, 2023. Documents the software licensing, connectivity, data and equipment-transfer requirements.
9. Memorandum of Understanding Between American Farm Bureau Federation and John Deere, effective January 8, 2023. Establishes the voluntary repair-access commitments and the Farm Bureau's corresponding legislative commitment.
10. FTC, States Sue Deere & Company to Protect Farmers from Unfair Corporate Tactics, High Repair Costs — Federal Trade Commission, January 15, 2025. Details the regulator's allegations concerning restricted diagnostic software and repair competition.
11. John Deere Fires Back at FTC Lawsuit — DTN, January 16, 2025. Records Deere's response and its claims about expanding self-repair capabilities.
12. FTC and States Secure Settlement with Deere & Company — Federal Trade Commission, July 8, 2026. Explains the proposed ten-year repair-access agreement and its oversight requirements.
13. Joint Motion for Entry of Stipulated Order — Federal Trade Commission, July 8, 2026. Provides the actual settlement terms, including paid access arrangements and Deere's non-admission of wrongdoing.
14. In re Deere & Company Repair Services Antitrust Litigation — Official Settlement Website, 2026. Documents the separate $99 million proposed class-action settlement, Deere's denial of wrongdoing and pending court approval.
15. 2022 Census of Agriculture Highlights: Family Farms — USDA NASS, August 2025. Establishes the distinction between family ownership, small farms and large-scale family production.
16. Farming and Farm Income — USDA Economic Research Service, updated September 3, 2026. Provides the long-term history of American farm consolidation and agricultural productivity growth.
17. Getting Started with See & Spray Technology — John Deere, current product information. Documents Deere's latest published license and application-savings pricing arrangements.