How a Silicon Valley trend is impacting an $8B Canadian farm industry

In Frontier, Sask., a town of fewer than 400 people, the Honey Bee Manufacturing plant looms large at 120,000 square feet.

The business, which makes headers and swathers, has grown from a two-man family operation to a manufacturer that employs roughly 200 people and ships agricultural attachments all over the world. 

But Honey Bee is now monitoring a new challenge — one more commonly associated with Silicon Valley.

Just as some devices don't work with other companies' charging cables, some farm equipment now comes with tech that prevents farmers from using other brands' attachments — and companies like Honey Bee are concerned the practice is growing.

"It's becoming more and more prevalent every day and every year," said Jamie Pegg, Honey Bee general manager.

Farm equipment has become much more digitized, prompting some companies to use digital locks. They say this protects their copyrighted technology and prevents hacking, said John Schmeiser, president of the North American Equipment Dealers' Association.

But that can become a problem, he said, when digital locks are also used to stop one brand's products from working with another's.

Canadians can't currently bypass those locks without potentially violating the Copyright Act — and that can carry a serious penalty. 

But change could be on the horizon. 

A bill that was passed in Parliament last year and is working its way through the Senate would alter the Copyright Act, making it legal to circumvent digital locks in the interest of interoperability.

Both grain farmers and consumer advocates are watching it closely. Many see the interoperability issue as an offshoot of the right-to-repair debate, where companies use proprietary technology to stop customers from fixing their stuff on their own. 

Though companies say they're for protecting copyright, critics say digital locks are used to stamp out competition — and to keep rivals from developing new products that work with existing ones. 

"Can you fix the thing that you own? Can you buy products that interoperate with the thing that you own? These are fundamental freedoms," said Kyle Wiens, a U.S.-based right-to-repair advocate and founder of the iFixit online repair guide.

"Interoperability" essentially means the ability of one product or system to work with another one.