Equipment markets aren't functionning properly. High levels of vulnerability and scale issues, major expense for large scale and digital equipment. Problems with repair, issues of who owns the technology. Used equipment market is non-existent in some categories. Lots of abandoned processing equipment. Problems for sustainable producers finding domestic equipment. Salvage value on lots of trade-ins because too expensive to fix. Alot of equipment turn over in short periods, except when commodity prices are poor and farmers hang on. New technology unaffordable for SME farms.
Doug Hedley and Al Mussell report on equipment Agrifood Economic Systems
Federal right to repair framework for 2024 in 2023 budget. “Devices and appliances should be easy to repair, spare parts should be readily accessible, and companies should not be able to prevent repairs with complex programming or hard-to-obtain bespoke parts.” Propose changes to competition act to restrict manufacturer ability to restrict access to certain parts of equipment for repair. Changes also required to Copyright Act? C-294 currently held up in the Senate.
http://www.agrifoodecon.ca/uploads/userfiles/files/stratification%20in%20primary%20agriculture%20sep-21.pdf
