Deere & Company plans to buy a small-tractor manufacturing plant in China to begin offering low-horsepower tractors to Chinese farmers. Deere will purchase Ningbo Benye Tractor & Automobile Manufacture Company Ltd. from Ningbo in southern China.

The Benye tractor plant builds tractors in the 20- to 50-hp range. Deere reports that the small-tractor market in China is growing because rice farms there are becoming more mechanized. Deere operates two other manufacturing plants in China: a wholly owned facility located at Jiamusi, where Deere builds combines and tractors, and a joint-venture factory in Tianjin, where it builds 60- to 120-hp tractors.