There has always been a rivalry between farmers who farm in red (International Harvester) and in green (John Deere). The green farmers would chime in with the John Deere motto of “Nothing runs like a Deere,” to which their red counterparts would add, “and nothing smells like a John.” Now, farmers of both the green and red persuasion are angry with John Deere over the recent news of their involvement in the DEI and woke agenda being pushed by the left.
I grew up in vegetable farming and turf management as a kid. Today I live less than 21 miles from the home of John Deere in Grand Detour, Illinois, where he came to fame with his “self-scouring plow shears”. My father started out farming with orange (Allis Chalmers), then went red (International Harvester) and finally wound up green (John Deere).
This latest revelation could be strike three for John Deere so whoever is running the show out there in Moline, Illinois, should have their contract up for review by the board and be out.
JD Strike One
Strike one was when Deere intentionally engineered newer model tractors to not be serviceable by the farmers who owned them.
“Farmers now allowed to repair John Deere equipment” – THV11
That was resolved by pressures brought by farmers in a combination of litigation in courts as well as new laws to be passed by legislatures.
“Farmers champion “right to repair” laws” – CBS Sunday Morning
JD Strike Two
Came about just recently when John Deere announced it was laying off a large number of employees in both Iowa and Illinois to have their jobs done by workers down in Mexico.
“John Deere to layoff 590 Midwest workers before Mexico relocation | NewsNation Now” – News Nation
One can imagine how President Donald Trump would have stopped this as he did other such moves when he was president. He would promise John Deere a tariff on products coming back from Mexico to negate any profit gains at the expense of American labor. It is to be noted that these workers are United Auto Workers (UAW) union workers so one should be asking where their Biden supporting union president Shawn Fain is in all of this.
“Labor Unions Should NOT Endorse Joe Biden in 2024” – The Thinking Conservative
JD Strike Three
There are so many avenues to attack John Deere when it comes to strike three. You can start with external events like the “Capital City Pride Little Rainbow Run” presented by John Deere as a grooming event for children…
“John Deere Has Gone Woke!” – Robby Starbuck
then go inside the actual company where pronoun preference is being indoctrinated on employees…
“Diversity Equity & Inclusion” – John Deere
and further attack them for their Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) which are at the very least left leaning in nature if not socialist front organizations.
CONCLUSION:
Having toured John Deere’s home and blacksmith shop many times in Grand Detour, as well as attended the Green Iron Days (a gathering of vintage John Deere tractors by owners held there years ago), I feel like I know Mr. John Deere pretty well. As a John Deere owner myself, I feel it is safe to say the guy who started this company 186 years ago is now rolling over in his grave. But, if he could come back from the grave, he would be looking to kick some Godless lefty liberal asses out of HIS company!
To their credit though, John Deere has already been run by some DEI executives for many years before DEI was a thing. I will offer two good examples here:
I had a relative who was a John Deere dealer. Matter of fact, he was the #1 dealer in his state back in the day. Back then, John Deere used to reward all of their top dealers in every state with a vacation abroad which was also a good way for the top dealers to network and share experiences with the marketing team out in Moline. Then they hired a new vice president of marketing and that entire program ended instantly. Top dealers were PISSED as an incentive was wrongfully lost all to save a buck.
That same relative-dealer of mine taught me a funny thing about the tractors of that company that had my jaw on my chest. The same key that could start my $500 lawnmower could start a $5,000 to $50,000 agriculture tractor. The joke the dealers had was, “One key starts all!” I tried it myself once on a farmer friend and he thought it was pretty funny until he thought of the ramifications of theft and then he was really angry.
As recently as 2020 the website “Ag Update” made this statement on John Deere’s “universal keys”:
“Just a few keys can operate most models and years of John Deere equipment. It’s not one key fits all, but one key fits many tractors manufactured by the same company, often decades apart. Of the millions of things farmers have to worry about, having the right key to start a tractor or combine is rarely one of them. Jan 28, 2020”
John Deere needs to clean house in Moline and by that I mean the address at “One John Deere Place” world headquarters and not any of the various manufacturing plants around town. A handful of white collars are destroying the entire company for the blue collar workers, the famers in denim who buy them, and stockholders who wear a variety of collars owning John Deere stock.
Copyright © 2024 by Mark S. Schwendau
