Good morning. I'm John May, Chairman and CEO of Deere and Company. It's my privilege to welcome you to the 2021 Annual Meeting of Shareholders. The agenda you see on the screen sets out the order in which we'll proceed as well as the rules of conduct for the meeting. Our meeting concludes with a general discussion during which we'll welcome your comments.
Website as are the rules of conduct, proxy statement and annual report. This morning, I'd like to recap John Deere's recent performance and some of the significant updates we made to our strategy and operations. Then we'll look ahead to 2021 and beyond. In 2020, the COVID-nineteen pandemic created enormous challenges. It had to say the least a dramatic effect on our employees, operations and customers around the world.
It was one of the most consequential years in Deere's 184 year history. Our first priority and continues to be protecting the health, safety and overall welfare of our employees. Our second priority was delivering on our commitment to our customers meeting their needs with the most advanced equipment and most responsive service. I'm proud to say we had a good deal of success on both accounts. Company also launched a new business strategy and operating model to produce even better outcomes for our customers, employees and investors.
Around the world, governments designated our ag and construction businesses essential to helping secure the world's food supply and meet vital infrastructure needs. At the same time, we proactively implemented aggressive health and safety measures. We provided employees health screenings, enhanced personal protective equipment and staggered production schedules. By safeguarding our employees. We were able to keep our operations running and our people working with relatively minor interruption.
And we kept new equipment and parts flowing to our customers during the critical planting and harvesting seasons. Pandemic in fact drove increased adoption of technology and tools that make up our digital ecosystem. For example, the number of remote diagnostic sessions between customers and dealers more than doubled last year. Those are the interactions in which our dealers can assess the condition of our customers' equipment. And in some cases dealers can actually service the equipment in a virtual environment.
Financial services business also played a critical role supporting dealers and customers during the pandemic. It offered ongoing and flexible financing arrangements when uncertainty was highest. Only by protecting our workforce could we deliver on our commitment to our customers and fulfill our role as an essential business. And my 23 years with Deere, I've never been prouder of the way our dedicated team of employees, dealers and suppliers work together to meet this challenge and fulfill our essential role. To them all, we express a heartfelt thanks.
2020 was also a year which Deere delivered strong financial performance. This was a result of excellent execution by our global teams. Deere achieved net income of $3,750,000,000 on net sales of over $31,000,000,000 while maintaining a healthy balance sheet. Operating profit for our largest operation Ag and Turf increased to just under $3,000,000,000 despite lower sales. Technology adoption continued in 2020.
We also saw higher demand for small equipment. The Construction and Forestry division, which accounted for roughly 30% of our sales, remains solidly profitable, aided by sales of road building and compact construction equipment. Our financial services business again made a substantial contribution to our results accounting for over 20% of our profits. It provided access to credit to customers throughout the pandemic. Looking ahead, we're optimistic about 2021.
Conditions in the farm economy are improving, while demand is picking up in the construction and road building sectors as well. As reported last week, we started out the year on a strong financial note. Our latest forecast calls for sales and earnings to be higher in 2021. Another highlight of the past year was the many important new products brought to market with the latest technology and cutting edge features. As an example, Deere's most advanced combines, the X9 Series was introduced.
The 2 X9 models deliver an average of 45% more harvesting capacity, while using 20% less fuel. We're also seeing great demand for our advanced 8 Series row crop tractors. Precision Agriculture made additional strides as more customers embrace its sustainability and productivity enhancing benefits. The use of technology to drive more precision, speed and accuracy grew again in 2020. For Construction and Forestry, our new updated construction equipment included a line of utility loaders that offer improved comfort and performance as well as technology solutions to automate jobs such as grading.
Our road building unit introduced new products including 2 large milling machines and made further improvements to its highly regarded cold milling process. One of the biggest stories of 2020 was the introduction of our new strategy and operating model that are already delivering benefits. The goal for our smart industrial strategy is to accelerate the integration of technology with our comprehensive product lineup. The strategy is designed to deliver intelligent, connected machines and applications that revolutionize how our customers work in both agriculture and construction. This focus on what we're terming production systems helps us understand our customers' operations on a deeper level.
And it allows us to deliver solutions that account for each decision and job required to produce a crop or complete a project. In addition, we created a Chief Technology Officer role and consolidated multiple groups focused redevelopment of our tech stack. The stack enhances our ability to rapidly develop technologies and bring new solutions to market across our portfolio. Deere's tech stack represents the full set of components required to deliver the next generation of machines and services to our customers. Our technology development efforts are driven by a single overarching goal, unlocking customer economic value.
This refers to how we can help customers increase productivity, enhance profitability and improve sustainability across each step of their operation. Our customer support and aftermarket capabilities were also combined into a new life cycle solutions unit. It's an area that encompasses parts, components, upgrades and for our dealers maintenance and repair service. When customers buy from John Deere, they expect and deserve to be supported the entire time they own a product, the full lifecycle. This is increasingly important as our machines are more connected and technologically advanced.
We see big opportunities to better serve our customers over the entire life of our products. Finally, by adopting a more disciplined approach for capital allocation, another part of our smart industrial effort, Deere will be able to focus investment and research dollars on the businesses most aligned with its strategy. The company's smart industrial strategy holds the key to delivering differentiated value for our customers. It also will help grow our leadership in precision technologies and provide meaningful and rewarding opportunities for employees. Our strategy is also designed to help the company achieve higher levels of growth and more consistent financial performance.
We've also designed a more nimble company with higher degrees of empowerment and even more opportunities for our employees. We're confident these changes will allow us to respond changing market conditions with greater speed, effectiveness and decisiveness. They're making Deere a more formidable competitor, a better investment in a company capable of producing value for years to come. In addition, these changes will allow the company to fulfill its higher purpose of running in a manner that helps the lives of those we serve leap forward. On behalf of the company's management and Board of Directors, I'd like to thank our shareholders and many friends for their loyalty and support.
At this time, I would like to introduce the other directors who are standing for reelection and subject to the vote of the shareholders will serve you in directing the affairs of the company next year. They are Tamara A. Erwin, Executive Vice President and Group CEO of Verizon Business Group Alan C. Heiberger, Senior Manager, BMGI Charles O'Holliday, Jr, Chairman of Royal Dutch Shell, Deepak C. Jain, President, China Europe International Business School Michael O.
Johans, retired United States Senator from Nebraska and former U. S. Secretary of Agriculture. Clayton M. Jones, Retired Chairman and CEO of Rockwell Collins, Inc.
Gregory R. Page, Chairman of Corteva, Inc. Sherry M. Smith, former Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of SUPERVALU Inc. Dimitri L.
Stockton, retired Special Advisor to the Chairman and Senior Vice President of General Electric Company and former Chairman, President and CEO of GE Asset Management Incorporated. Sheila G. Talton, President and Chief Executive Officer, Gray Matter Analytics. Before proceeding, I have good news for our shareholders. The Board of Directors earlier today approved an increase in the quarterly dividend on Deere stock to $0.90 per share payable on May 10.
It's an increase of $0.14 per share or 18%. The new rate is a reflection of Deere's recent strong performance and it shows our confidence in the company's future direction. Now to the business of the meeting. I have an affidavit of the Corporate Secretary stating that the notice of this meeting and the proxy statements conference call, which were mailed to all who were shareholders on the record date for this meeting. The inspectors of election and for this meeting are David Kaulia and Brent Norwood, Deere and Company Investor Relations and Greg Malatia, representing Broadridge Financial Solutions Inc, Independent Inspector of Election.
They have advised me that based on the proxies received up to 5 p. M. Yesterday afternoon, 270,000,000 355,219 shares or not less than 85.98% of the shares entitled to vote are represented here in person or by proxy. Therefore, a quorum is present and it is my pleasure to hereby officially call the meeting to order. I would like to thank the shareholders for their outstanding response to our request for proxy.
A list of shareholders has been available for inspection by any shareholder for 10 days and will remain available until the close of the meeting. Our first official business this morning is the election of the Directors. The persons recommended by the Board's Corporate Governance Committee and nominated by the Board of Directors were listed in the proxy statement and are as follows in alphabetical order. Tamara A. Irwin, Alan C.
Heiberger, Charles O. Holiday Jr, Deepak C. Jain, Michael O. Johans, Clayton M. Jones, John C.
May, Gregory R. Page, Sherry M. Smith, Dimitri L. Stockton and Sheila G. Talton.
Nominations. The polls have been open for voting on these nominees since January 8, 2021, when the mailing of the proxy statements began. As indicated in the proxy statement under the company's bylaws, notice of intent to nominate additional persons for election to the Board of Directors must be received by the Secretary of the company not less than 90 no more than 120 days before the shareholder meeting. We have not received notice of any additional nominees. Next as indicated in item 2 in the proxy statement, a non binding advisory vote on executive compensation is submitted for shareholder vote.
The Board recommends a vote to approve the non binding advisory resolution on executive compensation. Next, as indicated item 3, Audit Review Committee has approved the selection of Deloitte and Touche LLP to serve as the company's independent registered public accounting firm to audit Deere's financial statements and internal controls over financial reporting for the 2021 fiscal year. The Audit Review Committee and the Board are requesting that shareholders ratify this appointment. Shareholder approval to ratify the appointment requires the affirmative vote of a majority of the shares present or represented and entitled to vote at the meeting. The Board recommends a vote to ratify the appointment of the independent registered public accounting firm.
No further items have been submitted pursuant to the company's bylaws. Therefore, I declare the nominations and proposals to be voted on closed. And we will now proceed with voting. As the proxy committee Mr. Davies and I have conferred and intend to vote for the 11 Director nominees listed in the proxy statement.
4, the non binding advisory vote on executive compensation 4, the ratification of Deloitte Intouche LLP as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for fiscal 2021. If you have sent in a proxy card and wish your shares to be voted as indicated, it will not be necessary to cast a ballot at this time. However, if you have not voted or if you wish to change your vote, please follow the voting instructions on your screen. Again, the ballot for voting or changing your vote regarding Directors Erwin, Heiberger, Holiday, Jane, Johan's, Jones, May, Age, Smith, Stockton and Talton. It is for voting or changing your vote regarding the non binding advisory vote on executive compensation.
And the ballot is also for voting or changing your vote regarding the ratification of Deloitte and Touche LLP as the company's independent registered public accounting firm. Preliminary results of voting will be announced before the end of this meeting. The next order of business will be comments from the independent registered public accountants. Deloitte Intouche is engaged by the Audit Review Committee of the Board to conduct the annual audit of our financial statements and our effectiveness of internal controls over financial reporting. And their representative with us today is Mr.
Doug Alkema, Deloitte Lead Client Service Partner for the Deere and Company Audit. Mr. Alkema will now make his statement.
We've conducted our audit of the financial statements of Deere and Company and subsidiaries and the effectiveness of the company's internal control over financial reporting. Our opinion dated December 17, 2020 is included in the company's 2020 annual report, which was made available to the shareholders in advance of this meeting. Our opinion contains no qualifications or exceptions. The Audit Review Committee of the Board of Directors. It included tests of the accounting records at all significant company locations.
No restrictions were placed on the scope of our audit and we had full access to and the cooperation of the Board of Directors, management and the financial staff.
Hi, I'm John May, Chairman and CEO of John Deere. I'm here at our worldwide headquarters in Moline, Illinois, where we are exhibiting for the 3rd time at CES, albeit virtually this year. While we couldn't be in Las Vegas, our virtual brands is just another example of how we've adapted to keep things running this year. There's no doubt 2020 was a transformational year Deere in which we laid the foundation required to accomplish our new ambitious vision for our company. Now with that foundation laid, it's important to look forward to the opportunity ahead of us that our new operating model enables.
I'd like to start with our approach to precision ag, which is highly differentiated in the market. Customers a system advantage. Our equipment is integrated through innovative technologies across each step in the production system. Our precision ag strategy begins with our equipment that executes a job in the field. Like never before, our industry is attracting new and non traditional players such as software robotics companies.
However, these technologies must ultimately be paired with ag equipment to execute expanding our customers' entire production system. In addition to our ag equipment portfolio, we've also spent the last 20 years investing and foundational precision technology capabilities such as guidance, digital connectivity, machine intelligence and autonomy. We believe our core tech capabilities are best in class. Our greatest potential comes from stacking technologies together, delivering seamless integrated solutions that get smarter over the course of every season. The combination of our technology integrated with our complete equipment portfolio uniquely positions us.
Deere is delivering the next generation of solutions. Lastly, we can't do this without our dealers. Our world class dealer network sales and services these latest technologies. They are the last mile and have become one of the most critical enablers precision technology adoption. Our dealer channel has been leading the industry by modernizing their capabilities and staff.
Core technologies and a dealer network working in concert together to make farming more profitable and more sustainable. While we're proud of the progress made to date, we're even more excited mission points where technology advancements unlock new possibilities. Technologies like telematics, cloud computing and more recently Edge Computing and Artificial Intelligence have reset the realm of possibilities for Deere. Ultimately, our goal is to know where every single plant is within a field and care for each plant individually, providing the right nutrients and protection while minimizing wasted resources. We see decades of opportunity for each of our core capabilities.
Individually, these technology capabilities are advancing in greater functionality, while the ability to stack them creates new possibilities to create even more value for our customers. For example, we've been developing guidance technology for over 20 years, but still see enormous opportunity. Over the years, we progressed our guidance capabilities from straight lines to later encompass end of road turn automation. And today, we further innovated guidance to include AutoPath Planning, which leverages route mapping from one step to the subsequent one and still to come is the stacking of guidance with machine intelligence to deliver autonomy. We have countless other examples like this in our innovation roadmap, giving us optimism that we are uniquely positioned to lead the industry in the next wave of productivity.
As we shift our focus to the future, we've got some very exciting solutions that we will bring to market over the next few years. And we'll talk a lot more about the specifics over the course of 2021. By Stacking our technology capabilities, I'd like to highlight 3 near term opportunities our product roadmap is focused on, leveraging fleet intelligence, plant level management and autonomy. Data has become the primary fuel for our precision capabilities. The collective intelligence of our fleet ultimately, the goal is to use our data set to benefit our customers with machines that get smarter from one step to the next and from one season to another.
To date, we've only just begun and see much opportunity ahead. Also exciting for us is a breakthrough innovation in plant level management through the introduction of See and Spray technology. In 2021, we will be releasing the 1st iteration and plan to follow that shortly with the advanced version of CNSPRY. We've been very excited about this application since acquiring Blue River technology. The ability for our machines to sense and react has broad applicability beyond herbicides and ultimately we we will extend this technology for other production steps within a given system.
This technology delivers substantial cost savings, reduces passes through the field and meaningfully impacts the carbon footprint associated with this step of Farming. In the coming months, we'll showcase how our investments in guidance and automation have produced progress in our development of autonomous solutions. By leveraging our tech stack in guidance, Connectivity and Machine Intelligence. We continue on a journey toward autonomy and we'll offer some early stage solutions in the next few years. These early applications provide the foundational building blocks to train the data sets required to fully develop our autonomy capabilities for broader use in the future.
Much of the work we've done in ag is also directly portable to our Construction and Forestry division. Innovations in machine controls, automation and obstacle detection remains substantial opportunities for the industry. We're well positioned to deliver these in the coming years. Today, our customers face significant challenges, skilled labor availability, safety and complex work sites that require multiple pieces of equipment working in concert to develop a site. By taking full advantage of technology in our precision ag groups.
We can greatly simplify tasks for operators. Customers can better scale labor throughout the worksite, ultimately improving safety, reducing error and increasing the overall output of each job for our customers. Our vision, John Deere customers will lead their industries by becoming the world's most profitable and sustainable businesses. No one else is better equipped to deliver this for our customers. And every hour count.
This makes their operations more sustainable and less intensive on the environment, while also saving them time and money. Early this year, we released our 2020 Sustainability Report. In it, we highlighted how our precision technologies are already making customers more sustainable and productive. For example, we quantify how a representative farm ultimately uses less fuel, applies less herbicide and fertilizer and emits less greenhouse gases by just incorporating technologies like AutoTrac, Section Control and ExactEmerge into its operations. And what I'm most excited about is that despite the multi decade investment we've already made.
We are still just getting started on this journey. We will enable our customers to do more with even less, as well as adapt to the dynamic nature of weather patterns and the global regulatory environment. We have of the most useful and collaborative data platforms in the industry. And we're exploring ways that data can help our customers to participate in new markets and programs that reward our customers for incorporating sustainable practices into their operations. Our tools will allow customers to demonstrate the impact of their sustainable outcomes and through that taught us to be more resilient than ever, something our customers have all but mastered.
We also learned how to be more innovative and do it faster. Continue to make significant leaps forward for a more profitable and sustainable future for us all. Before we have the discussion period, we will hear the preliminary report from the inspectors of voting. The preliminary report is based on all proxies returned as of 5 p. M.
Yesterday. After the meeting, the inspectors will count any additional proxies we received up to the time the polls close. The polls will close upon adjournment of this meeting or at 11 am whichever is later. The final report of the inspectors will be included in the records of the meeting and will appear in the Form 8 ks filing within 4 days of the votes being finalized. Mr.
Greg Malatia, Executive the Account Executive representing Broadridge Financial Solutions Inc, Independent Inspector of Election will now give the preliminary report.
Mr. Chairman, we report that subject to final validation, the nominees for Director included in the proxy statement received not less than 220,496,312 votes, representing 93% of the votes cast. There were 221,926,337 votes cast in favor of the approval of the John Deere 2021 Equity and Incentive Plan, representing 93.6% of the votes cast. There were 257,647,795 votes cashed in favor of the ratification of Deloitte and Touche LLP as Deere's independent registered public accounting firm for fiscal 2021, representing 95.2 percent of the votes cast.
Thank you, Mr. Malatia. Based on your report, I declare the nominees of the Board named in the proxy statement to be elected as Directors the non binding advisory vote to approve executive compensation has passed. The ratification of Deloitte and Touche as the company's independent registered public accounting firm has passed. And now, ladies and gentlemen, I would be pleased to answer questions from any shareholder related to the business of the company or the interests of other shareholders.
I am able to fully discuss issues pertaining to our business and welcome your questions. Q1. If you wish to ask a question, please follow the question instructions on the screen. In your electronic transmission, and the Q1 of 2019. I will now open the line for questions.
All right. We see some questions coming in. The first question that I've received is, how is Deere improving its ability to deal with customers locally? And this is a great question and it really relates to how did we handle customers during the pandemic when in most cases we didn't have the ability to have dealers on-site early on and working side by side with our customers to address their service needs. What we did was we leveraged a lot of our technology tools.
A lot of the tools that we talk about as part of our new smart industrial strategy where we've created this new tech stack that has lots of new sensors, lots of new software, telematics capabilities, the abilities to talk to machines from remote locations and to monitor machines from remote locations. We were able during COVID and we continue to leverage that tech stack and connect directly to our customers' machines, identify in some cases the particular issue they're having before the customer knows they're having an issue with a remote expert alert code that would be sent to us and the dealer and then we work with the customer to get the right parts and service they need to fix the machines. We also have the ability to go on board the machine from an off board location and make adjustments to the settings on the machine in order to make sure our customers are getting the most out of their machines and they're up and running when they need the equipment most. The last area I'd like to comment because a lot of times we talk about connection with the customer and we reference the hardware that the customers are using.
What's also very critical is connecting with our JDF customers. During COVID and we continue to experience this, we'll have several customers that because of business disruptions that they're experienced, whether their jobs have been delayed or canceled or their end customer has a difficult time paying for their services. JDF works aggressively with those customers to come up with a very tailored solution that helps them get through the difficult times their business is experiencing. So those would be a few examples of how we're helping our customers in this environment. Great question.
Thank you. Next question that came in is, will you increase research and development going forward? And that's an excellent question. As a company, we just went through a new strategy that we call the Smart Industrial Strategy. There's 3 components to that strategy.
1 is we reorganize the organization to focus on our customers' production systems, focus on how our customers work, how they do the jobs they do. We also created this new technology stack where we centralize all of our technology, which enables us to more efficiently design technology, but more quickly share it across all of our product lines. And finally, we set up a new organization, a new life cycle organization that's going to help and make sure our customers are served better and receive the parts and service they need them when they need them. You're going to see us focus more dollars of our R and D into that tech stack because where we see the biggest differentiator where we can unlock more value for our customers, ultimately making our customers more profitable, more productive and do the jobs they do in a more sustainable way. We're going to make sure we invest those very valuable R and D dollars to deliver those solutions to our customers.
Those solutions could come in the form of equipment, they could come in the form of software or they could come in the form of our operations system, which connects them with their trusted advisors. So we're really excited about the future. Business. This new organization that we've developed, this new smart industrial strategy is going to allow us to move faster and focus on the very specific needs where our customers need help. So great question.
Thank you. The third question that came in is how has Deere managed balance sheet and liquidity position through the last year. That's an excellent question and it actually triggers a very point in time and that was in March of last year when COVID was hitting hard globally and we saw markets start to shut down, businesses shut down, countries shut down. And that was a very uncertain time for Deere as well as all of our competitors and many other companies in the world. We quickly went to markets to raise capital to make sure that we had enough cash available to continue to pay our employees if we experience a major disruption, continue to pay our suppliers to get the parts we need and allow us a buffer in order to get our operations back up and running.
While we had very few operations that actually went down in the near term, it was a really, really good decision of management to make sure we had that buffer, we had that strong cash position in order to weather any storm that we would experience during COVID. Business. Now as our operations continue to function, we kept our operations open for most parts of the world. We've also been able to continue to generate very strong cash position and Ryan, our CFO highlighted that during our last quarterly call. This would be great not just for Deere, it would be great for our competitors, it would be great for our dealers and it would be great for our customers.
Our roads, our bridges, our highways need to be modernized and funds dedicated at modernizing those very critical systems that not only flow people, but also ship goods across our country would be a big benefit to our economy. It would mean more jobs to complete the work of these projects. But in the end how it would specifically impact Deere, we would certainly see more demand on our products and our dealers as well. So infrastructure plan that's organized and it really quickly goes to market would be very good for our customers, our competitors in for John Deere. Thank you.
Next question is, how does Deere use robotics and will it increase over time? I love this question because prior to becoming Chairman and CEO, I was focused on developing our precision Ag Strategy. And in that Precision Ag Strategy, we talked about 3 things. We talked about making sure machines we're always up and running. Use technology to make machines always up and running.
The next thing we talked about was automate the jobs our the jobs and the decisions that our customers do. Take the decisions out of their hands and use technology to do the decision better for them. So again, ultimately, they're more productive, they're more profitable. And then thirdly, was make sure machines are optimized and up and running when our customers need them. Robotics fits squarely into that automation part of our strategy.
And we have several examples of by using technology we've been able to automate a step that required a human to look at a screen and make a decision to actuate a machine. We're now doing it with advanced algorithms and robotics. One of the real highlight products that you're going to see in the next couple of years is our product called See and Spray. See and Spray is a sprayer that has the ability to go through the field and differentiate between a healthy plant Ana Weed and by using computer vision, seeing the difference between the 2, identifying the weed, using an advanced algorithm to determine what sort of herbicide that weed needs and then use a robotic solution to apply herbicide to exactly meet the requirements of that weed. By doing so, we have the opportunity to reduce herbicide use by 80% to 90% in the industry.
So robotics is not only going to have a big benefit for our customers, it's going to have a big benefit on the environment as well. Next question, How Can Deere Help Ease Labor Cost and Shortages for Farmers. Wherever I travel around the world and whether I'm talking to customers, C and F customers or if I'm talking to ag customers, to turf customers, to golf customers, to forestry customers, they all say their number one challenge is access to labor. And I think one of the biggest things we can do to help out our customers and deal with those labor shortages. Number 1, make the machines as easy as possible to do and automate the machines, automate the machines where the operator is less the machine is less dependent on the operator making actual decisions.
The machine itself is sensing and then it's actuating and performing the job better than the operator or farmer can in the cab. In the end, the benefit is you don't need the same level of labor, but you also do the job in a better way, a more profitable way, more productive way in a more sustainable way. Ultimately you will see us transition to full autonomy, where operators won't be needed in the cab and the machines will operate completely by themselves. As a matter of fact, this year we will have a fully autonomous tillage tool that we'll be testing throughout the United States to prove out the technology. Excellent question.
Next question is, how does Deere compete in foreign markets and what is the opportunity in emerging markets. So our global footprint is quite broad for all of our divisions and whether it's ag and turf or it's Construction and Forestry. We compete in those markets where we have a business opportunity to serve whether it's a farmer contractor with the products and tools that we have. Some cases, we serve those markets by localizing manufacturing in order to customize and develop a very specific requirement product requirement that that customer may need or in some other cases we have the opportunity to import equipment and solutions into those markets to serve those customers. Global growth for John Deere has been a big part of our strategy and you'll continue to see us focus on spanning our operations and bringing our technology, our solutions, our products to customers around the world with again ultimately making a John Deere customer more profitable, more productive and do the jobs they do in a more sustainable way.
We have time for one last question. And the question is, what are Deere's plans with regard to alternative power sources such as electrification and hydrogen. Let me start first with electrification and we have lots of use commercially applied today in our products. On the precision side, we have used electrification where we've replaced very traditional hydraulic systems or ground driven planting systems to use an electric motor to give much more precision, much more control to the machine in order to get even more exact seed rates, better spacing, better depth. When you think of electrification on our machines, think of more precise application.
And that was one example I gave you. There are several examples across the entire enterprise. Another one I'd like to talk about is we've just launched an award winning EIVT, which is an infinitely variable transmission that are in our tractors today that not only act as the transmission for the vehicle, but they also off board very valuable electricity that we can use now the power implements and it replaces hydraulic solutions. So those are only a couple examples. We like all companies are going to continue to leverage these technologies and look for ways to make sure that and look for ways to make sure that by leveraging these technologies they do 2 things.
1, they bring more precision to our customers and they also have a very positive environmental impact. So with that, I'd like to express my sincere thanks for the many years of dedicated service given to John Deere by each retiree and active employee attending this virtual meeting, as well as the 1,000 who are not attending. Thanks to all shareholders who attended today. Board of Directors will reconvene immediately following this meeting. Conference call.
I now declare this meeting adjourned. Thank you all for attending.