Deere & Company is a large American brand and manufacturer of agricultural machinery and industrial equipment. Its headquarters are located in Moline, Illinois (USA).

The company's origins date back to 1836, when John Deere invented one of the first steel plows capable of plowing the soil of the American Midwest prairies without clogging. The following year, Deere established a company to manufacture and market the plow, and his own company was incorporated as Deere & Company in 1868. The current company was incorporated in 1958 as John Deere – Delaware Company; it took its current name later that year after merging with the former Deere & Company and its subsidiaries. Since its inception, Deere & Company has seen five generations of Deere family leaders.

In general, in agriculture, the 1960s and 1970s were a period of accelerating technological change that encouraged farmers to rely on significantly larger economies of scale to ensure profitability. This trend had a major impact on Deere & Company and resulted in a corresponding growth in the company's business, which increasingly focused on manufacturing agricultural equipment for expanding businesses - giant tractors, balers, and planting and harvesting machines. However, in order to maintain the production of a wide range of agricultural products for small and medium-sized farms while meeting the demand for larger machines, Deere & Company became one of the leading proponents of the "flexible-manufacturing" production system. As part of this system, Deere built a factory in Iowa in 1981 at a cost of over $1.5 billion that extensively used computers and robots, allowing the company to simultaneously manage many small assembly lines for different products and realize profits even at low levels of production. Thanks in large part to this strategy, Deere & Company became the largest American manufacturer of agricultural equipment by the end of the 20th century and, during the first quarter of the 21st century, it was the largest agricultural machinery company in the world.

In addition to manufacturing agricultural machinery, Deere factories in the United States, Canada, Western Europe, India, Argentina, Brazil, and South Africa produce industrial, construction, and forestry equipment such as forklifts, bulldozers, and industrial tractors, as well as other consumer goods like chainsaws and lawn maintenance equipment. As of 2020, the company had sites in over 70 countries.

Currently, the range of motorization covers the following categories:

Compact tractors: 22.4-65.9 horsepower (HP)

Utility tractors: 50-250 horsepower (HP)

Specialized tractors: 75-155 horsepower (HP)

Large-scale farming tractors: 110-410 horsepower (HP)

4x4 tractors: 390-640 horsepower (HP)

The list of brands of the John Deere group:

Wirtgen

Composed of Wirtgen, Vögele, Hamm, Kleemann, and Benninghoven, the Wirtgen Group offers mobile machine solutions for road construction and rehabilitation, mineral and recycling material extraction and processing facilities, as well as for asphalt production. The five brands, when used together, cover the entire road construction cycle, from processing, mixing, paving, compacting, and rehabilitation.

Hagie

The story of Hagie is one of innovation and insight. Ray Hagie was driven to reduce inefficiencies and find a better solution, which led him to focus on spraying solutions for crops. In 1947, his passion for problem-solving produced the world's first self-propelled sprayer. This groundbreaking breakthrough led to increased sales, plant expansions, and an international market. Hagie continues to produce high-clearance sprayers and detasseling equipment.

PLA

Founder Juan Carlos Pla established the first grain elevators in Argentina's shipping ports before manufacturing his flagship product, the high-frame sprayer. In 1978, PLA manufactured Latin America's first self-propelled sprayer, followed by the automatic trailer system (1993) and the world's first "autopilot" sprayer (1999). PLA manufactures planters and sprayers.

Mazzotti

Founded by the Mazzotti family, the company's experience in building self-propelled agricultural equipment dates back nearly 75 years. Farmers at heart, the family has built a reputation as passionate innovators and visionaries in the continuous evolution of customer problem-solving and demand satisfaction. Mazzotti manufactures self-propelled sprayers in Italy.

Monosem

For over 75 years, Monosem has been providing precision vacuum seeders and cultivators of quality in over 80 countries worldwide. Since 1945, Monosem's history has been punctuated by continuous product innovations. Long considered the market leader in French precision seeders, Monosem has marketed its products worldwide with approximately 70% of its production exported. The Kansas City branch in Kansas focuses on the North American specialty crop market.

A&I Products

Since 1980, A&I Products has become a leading manufacturer and wholesale distributor of replacement parts for the agricultural, lawn, and industrial equipment markets. With its roots as a small machine shop and repair installation, A&I Products transitioned to manufacturing new parts to replace those identified as frequently requiring repairs. Now, A&I Products offers over 160,000 different references in many applications.

Blue River Technology focuses on maximizing production while minimizing impact on the environment by combining the latest innovations and technologies. Their See & Spray Select technology, available on John Deere Series 400 and 600 sprayers, uses computer vision, machine learning, and robotics to save customers time and money while increasing profitability sustainably.

Harvest Profit, founded in 2015, provides a suite of software tools aimed at helping farmers track costs, profits, grain marketing positions, and inventory. The company's mission is to provide more financial visibility to agriculture and empower farmers to treat their farms as a year-round business.

Bear Flag Robotics manufactures autonomous technology for farm tractors, increasing safety, reliability, and profitability for agricultural operations. The company was founded in 2017 in Silicon Valley by co-founders Aubrey Donnellan and Igino Cafiero. Bear Flag Robotics was acquired by John Deere in 2021 after participating in the John Deere Startup Collaborator program in 2019.

Kreisel, founded in 2014 by brothers Johann, Markus, and Philipp Kreisel, is a leading innovator focused on developing immersion-cooled electric battery packs and modules. The company serves a global customer base across multiple end markets, including utility vehicles, off-road vehicles, marine, motorsports, and other high-performance applications. They also offer buffered charging infrastructure with batteries. Kreisel is based in Rainbach im Mühlkreis, Austria.