2008 News Releases and Information

MOLINE, Illinois (February 20, 2008) — Deere & Company achieved its highest rank ever in the annual “100 Best Corporate Citizens” list, which scored Deere 4th among more than 1,000 publicly–traded, large-cap U.S. companies. The yearly evaluation is compiled by CRO magazine, a journal of The CRO, a membership organization for corporate responsibility officers.

Among the categories evaluated by CRO, Deere scored especially well in climate change and human rights. Other strong scores for Deere came in philanthropy, environment and financial performance.

"We see this exercise as a valuable way to decipher companies' performance on things like governance and sustainability issues, especially when looking at how they did when measured against other companies in the marketplace," said CRO Editor-In-Chief Dennis Schaal.

To develop those eligible for the Best Corporate Citizens designation, CRO magazine evaluates each company in the Russell 1000 in partnership with IW Financial, a Portland, Maine, research and consulting firm in environment, social and governance issues. The rankings are based on the public facts and statistics and do not include interviews with company officials.

Other companies in the top ten are Intel Corp. (1), Eaton Corp. (2), Nike, Inc. (3), Genentech, Inc (5), Corning, Inc. (6), Humana, Inc (7), Bank of America Corp (8), ITT, Inc (9) and PG&E Corp. (10). For more details about CRO's 100 Best Corporate Citizens 2008, the methodology and CRO magazine, visit www.thecro.com.

John Deere (Deere & Company - NYSE: DE) is the world's leading provider of advanced products and services for agriculture and forestry and a major provider of advanced products and services for construction, lawn and turf care, landscaping and irrigation. John Deere also provides financial services worldwide and manufactures and markets engines used in heavy equipment. Since it was founded in 1837, the company has extended its heritage of integrity, quality, commitment and innovation around the globe.