A Canadian tractor builder is tapping into something far bigger than agriculture: the growing realization that modern technology increasingly serves corporations and enslaves consumers.

At a moment when tractors can cost more than a house and need monthly subscriptions to keep them working — one Alberta, Canada, entrepreneur is asking a deceptively simple question: what if farm equipment worked for farmers again? In this episode of Collapse Life, host Zahra Sethna speaks with Doug Wilson, founder of UrsaAg, the Canadian company building low-tech, repairable tractors designed to be owned outright, fixed locally, and passed down through generations. What begins as a conversation about farming equipment quickly expands into a much broader discussion about technological dependence, corporate control, fragility in the food system, and the growing backlash against “smart” everything.

You asked for it, folks, and here it is. Our conversation with Doug Wilson, founder of Ursa Ag, the low-tech tractor company that has suddenly gone viral after farmers across North America recognized themselves in the problem he describes.

Modern agricultural equipment has become astonishingly expensive, deeply computerized, and often impossible to repair without specialized technicians. In some cases, machinery worth over a million dollars can be disabled by something as absurd as a failed radio module tied into the tractor’s communication system (a.k.a. its CANBus system).

Wilson’s answer is so simple that it’s radical: build a machine that owners can actually afford, understand, repair, and maintain — with minimized technology touch points.

Beneath the surface discussion of tractors sits something much larger. As societies move toward increasingly software/app-driven infrastructure — from appliances to vehicles to farming itself — more people are beginning to question whether “smart” technology is genuinely improving their lives, or simply creating new forms of dependency, surveillance, and economic extraction.

The conversation also explores the mounting pressure on farmers themselves, from fertilizer shortages and tariff disruptions to shrinking profit margins and rising consolidation. Wilson argues that many farmers already understand the fragility of the system better than anyone else — because they live inside and with its constraints every day.

What begins as a conversation about farming equipment quickly expands into a much broader discussion about technological dependence, corporate control, fragility in the food system, and the growing backlash against “smart” everything.

Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Relevant links:

UrsaAg official website   Doug Wilson is founder of UrsaAg, the Canadian company building low-tech, repairable tractors designed to be owned outright, fixed locally, and passed down through generations. 

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Author

Zahra Sethna, writer and editor with decades of experience, is co-founder of www.collapselife.com, and host of the weekly Collapse Life podcast. Mom to three amazing greyhounds.

Zahra writes:  "We must recognize that large systems won’t get dismantled by tackling them head-on. The better strategy is to erode them at the edges. Find workarounds; choose older tech, simpler tools, parallel systems. This is how to restore a small amount of control. A tractor without electronics becomes a statement about who gets to decide when your work stops."

Read her work at Collapse Life on Substack.