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Some of this equipment weighs 150,000 pounds. The dealership lets you demo the machine for a certain number of hours and then you get used to it.

It’s hard for an area to support more than a few dealerships because this equipment isn’t rotated out very often (10-20 years?).

It’s hard to unseat an entrenched player, but loss of right to repair is a big step towards an upstart moving in.

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They should do what lab supply companies do who have similar constraints (hard to support dealerships for niche microscopes and such, expensive to ship and time consuming to set up sensitive microscopes and such): Salespeople. Have them make the rounds to the customers like these farmers. If there is interest among the farmers in a given area, you could then organize a demo day, email your clients about it, and interested parties would make time for it, especially if you are offering them a potential out from John Deere's yoke.

It's not only about demoing. As a farmer you have very few days to get your seeds out and very few days to get your harvest in. If you machine breaks down for too long, you might lose a lot of money. So you only get machines from somebody with mechanics and a full inventory of parts nearby. You cannot wait a day for something to arrive when you are on the field, you need to get it fixed NOW.

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