Engineering Complexity Into Farming

The do-it-yourself culture of American farming is increasingly threatened by the "code revolution" - mainly the inability of farmers and many other DIY types to tinker with closed propriety systems. Wired has an excellent article on the world of code frustrated farmers.  From the article.

"The cost and hassle of repairing modern tractors has soured a lot of farmers on computerized systems altogether. In a September issue of Farm Journal, farm auction expert Greg Peterson noted that demand for newer tractors was falling. Tellingly, the price of and demand for older tractors (without all the digital bells and whistles) has picked up. “As for the simplicity, you’ve all heard the chatter,” Machinery Pete wrote. “There’s an increasing number of farmers placing greater value on acquiring older simpler machines that don’t require a computer to fix.”"