John Deere & Co. makes a lot of its profits crafting farm combines, but the Illinois-based manufacturer doesn't figure crafting a life-sized one out of food is too uncanny.

Hoping to boost awareness of the role farmers and ranchers play in feeding the world, the Moline-based company's workers and retirees are using more than 300,000 cans of food in building a sculpture of a new S-Series combine.

When completed later this week, the sculpture is to measure 60 feet wide, 80 feet long and 16 feet tall and weigh nearly 170 tons. Deere hopes it breaks a world record.

It's being done at the John Deere Pavilion in Moline and will be displayed through mid-December.

Deere then will donate the food to the Moline's River Bend Foodbank.