Deere & Co. said it has reached a tentative agreement with the United Auto Workers Union on a six-year contract to replace a pact that expired Thursday.

Deere, the world's largest seller of farm tractors and harvesting combines, didn't release details of the agreement. The union is expected to schedule a ratification vote for Sunday. The Moline, Ill.-based company and the union have been negotiating since August.

The UAW represents about 10,000 manufacturing workers at a dozen plants, mostly in Iowa and Illinois. Deere is facing a significantly weaker business conditions than the last the time the company and the union negotiated a contract in 2009.

After years of expanding production and plants to meet rising global demand for farm equipment, Deere's sales are down 25% over the past three quarters from a year earlier, and profit is off 54%.

Lower prices for corn, soybeans and other crops are squeezing farmers' incomes in North America, dampening their interest in buying new equipment.

Meanwhile, in Brazil, a key growth market for Deere and other machinery manufacturers, higher interest rates and a recession are holding down equipment sales.

Write to Bob Tita at robert.tita@wsj.com

 

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(END) Dow Jones Newswires

October 01, 2015 03:55 ET (07:55 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2015 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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