Deere & Company, Moline, Ill., ranks sixth in the annual listing of the “100 Best Corporate Citizens” for 2004, which was announced recently by the Minneapolis-based Business Ethics magazine.

The ranking is Deere's highest ever ranking on the list, which is compiled after a review of the 1,000 largest publicly traded companies in the United States.

The analysis credited Deere with significant gains from last year when compared to other companies in three areas: return to stockholders (72nd to 40th), community (97th to 29th) and minorities and women (55th to 23rd). Deere also sustained the company's already high marks for service to employees, non-U.S. stakeholders and customers.

In an interview to be published in the spring issue of Business Ethics, Deere & Co. chairman and chief executive officer, Robert Lane said, “At John Deere, we like to say, ‘no smoke, no mirrors, no tricks; just right down the middle of the field. That's John Deere.’”

According to the magazine, the 100 Best Corporate Citizens ranking is based on quantitative measures of corporate service to seven groups — stockholders, community, minorities and women, employees, the environment, non-U.S. stakeholders and customers.

Deere has made the list in each of the five years since the magazine first named the Top 100 Corporate Citizens.

The Top 10 members of the 100 Best Corporate Citizens for 2004 are (in order from 1st to 10th): Fannie Mae; Procter & Gamble; Intel Corp.; St. Paul Companies; Green Mountain Coffee; Deere & Co.; Avon Products; Hewlett-Packard Co.; Agilent Technologies; and Ecolab Inc.