Intellectual property rights continue to play a role in ag that is oftentimes forgotten about entirely. Intellectual property protection improves crop quality substantially and profitability. It helps create branding and provides new tech to the industry. Patents, Plant Variety Protetion Laws, Trademarks and Trade secrets all support industry who take the time to innovate to make sure it isn’t just copied by the first person who sees it without compensation. It can be critical in a fruit or vineyard setting, where the landowner doesn’t necessarily own the rights to the varietal grown. How does a bank lend to the grower or the owner in those cases? Lawyers of course!
A new prong of the species the anti-trust aspect, that is at what point is innovation and research protection a restriction of fair competition.
The Federal Trade Commission, Illinois, and Minnesota, sued Deere, alleging that the company forces farmers to use only authorized dealers for critical repairs making independent repair and troubleshooting impossible. The lawsuit is based on the Fair-Trade Act, the Sherman Anti-Trust act and IL and MN antitrust law. This action was a consolidating of 18 law suits., Deere has a PR campaign against such laws that support a “right to repair”, John Deere called these the Complaints in the law suit as “meritless,” claiming the FTC is relying on “flagrant misrepresentations” and “fatally flawed legal theories.”
Ag Law Quick Facts After returning from the American Ag Law Annual Symposium, I am generally filled up with a host of topics to rant about for November. Here are some highlights.
Wind is here, despite whatever windbags we have in DC.
Total U.S. Installed land-based Wind Capacity: 151 GW in 2023, 153 GW in 2024
- Turbines Nationwide: 72,000 in 2023, 73,000 in 2024
- 4th Largest Source of Electricity Generation Capacity
- Wind Powers Equivalent of 46M U.S. Homes § Investment in 2023: $10B in new projects
- Employment: 126,000 Americans § State/Local Taxes and Land Lease Payments: $2B for 2023
- Wind Turbine Technician Fastest-Growing Job in U.S. § Increasing by 44% Over the Next 10 Years
Iowa is second only to Texas in the number of turbines installed (though Texas has over a three to one lead on Iowa.) Iowa produces 33% of its state generated electricity from wind.
Solar is not quite a rapid, it takes up more space. However, it is 565 of all new electric generation added to the grid. 33 GW were installed in 2025. Solar has some issues.
