64% of Dealers Report Encountering ‘Chipped’ Equipment

Mar 07, 2024

Almost two-thirds of dealers report altered emission systems come through their shops at least occasionally, according to the 2024 Farm Equipment Dealer Business Outlook & Trends report.

Just over 10% of dealers say they’re seeing these “chipped” machines regularly. While 54% say they’re seeing them occasionally. Just over one-third of dealers said they do not? receive machines with altered emissions systems in their shops.

About 46% of dealers say they have policies in place for how to handle altered emissions systems when they encounter them in customers’ machines.

When it comes to what those policies were, many dealers say they simply refuse to work on the machine at all. Some also say they will attempt to educate the customer on the issues the alterations can create, such as warranty consequences and the potential EPA issues.

Some dealers say they unhook or deactivate the device when they find it. One dealer says, “If possible, we unplug any ‘chip.’ We also try to explain the issues that these things can cause — it generally falls on deaf ears.”

Many dealers also note they will return the machine to its factory settings after removing the chip. One dealer says, “We alert management and then estimate the reconditioning needed to put equipment back to spec. Then we take it to a salesman and charge it back to him if a fault is discovered or back to the customer.”

A few dealers say they will work on the machine, though most said it was only under certain circumstances. As one dealer said, “If alteration is causing the problem, we will put it back to stock settings, or we won't work on it. If the alteration is unrelated to the problem, we will overlook it. For trade-in, we will have to be able to put it back to stock settings, or we won’t take it on trade.”

Another dealer says they have liability agreements customers must sign before the work begins.

For more info from the 2024 Farm Equipment Dealer Business Outlook & Trends report, click here.

Source : Farm Equipment

Video: Why Your Food Future Could be Trapped in a Seed Morgue

In a world of PowerPoint overload, Rex Bernardo stands out. No bullet points. No charts. No jargon. Just stories and photographs. At this year’s National Association for Plant Breeding conference on the Big Island of Hawaii, he stood before a room of peers — all experts in the science of seeds — and did something radical: he showed them images. He told them stories. And he asked them to remember not what they saw, but how they felt.

Bernardo, recipient of the 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award, has spent his career searching for the genetic treasures tucked inside what plant breeders call exotic germplasm — ancient, often wild genetic lines that hold secrets to resilience, taste, and traits we've forgotten to value.

But Bernardo didn’t always think this way.

“I worked in private industry for nearly a decade,” he recalls. “I remember one breeder saying, ‘We’re making new hybrids, but they’re basically the same genetics.’ That stuck with me. Where is the new diversity going to come from?”

For Bernardo, part of the answer lies in the world’s gene banks — vast vaults of seed samples collected from every corner of the globe. Yet, he says, many of these vaults have quietly become “seed morgues.” “Something goes in, but it never comes out,” he explains. “We need to start treating these collections like living investments, not museums of dead potential.”

That potential — and the barriers to unlocking it — are deeply personal for Bernardo. He’s wrestled with international policies that prevent access to valuable lines (like North Korean corn) and with the slow, painstaking science of transferring useful traits from wild relatives into elite lines that farmers can actually grow. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. But he’s convinced that success starts not in the lab, but in the way we communicate.

“The fact sheet model isn’t cutting it anymore,” he says. “We hand out a paper about a new variety and think that’s enough. But stories? Plants you can see and touch? That’s what stays with people.”

Bernardo practices what he preaches. At the University of Minnesota, he helped launch a student-led breeding program that’s working to adapt leafy African vegetables for the Twin Cities’ African diaspora. The goal? Culturally relevant crops that mature in Minnesota’s shorter growing season — and can be regrown year after year.

“That’s real impact,” he says. “Helping people grow food that’s meaningful to them, not just what's commercially viable.”

He’s also brewed plant breeding into something more relatable — literally. Coffee and beer have become unexpected tools in his mission to make science accessible. His undergraduate course on coffee, for instance, connects the dots between genetics, geography, and culture. “Everyone drinks coffee,” he says. “It’s a conversation starter. It’s a gateway into plant science.”