The 2016 CropLife 100 Preview
October 28, 2016 
Fall is in full swing and we at CropLife magazine are busy putting the finishing touches on our end-of-the-year stories and copy. Of course, as has been the case for the past 33 years now, part of this involves crunching the numbers from our annual read of the ag retail marketplace, gathered through the information obtained from our CropLife 100 survey. The complete wrap-up of this report will appear in our December 2016 edition.
However, for the past few years, I’ve devoted a November issue column to giving readers an early preview of some of the numbers being gleamed from surveys already entered into our database. So here goes …
As everyone in agriculture knows, this marketplace regularly experiences up and down cycles. Thus far, 2016 will definitely fall into the latter category. Overall, the nation’s top ag retailers will probably see their revenues dip between $750 million and $1 billion vs. 2015, when the industry saw incomes climb to more than $30 billion. Furthermore, the outlook for some kind of improvement during 2017 seems remote, with the majority of respondents (52%) describing their view on the financial prospects for the coming year as “somewhat pessimistic.”
UAVs don’t gain ground. For several years now, the proposed use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) has been an extremely hot topic with ag retailers and their grower-customers. Dozens of companies have entered this area with product offerings and entire trade shows have been started to tout their use.
For the most part, however, ag retailers have remained on the sidelines when it comes to UAV usage in their operations. Some market watchers speculated that once the Federal Aviation Administration passed its regulations on UAV use, companies would quickly jump on the bandwagon.
But this isn’t just happening yet. In the 2015 CropLife 100 survey, 49% of respondents said they planned to use UAVs in their operations in the coming year. In 2016, this percentage hasn’t budged, remaining at 49%.
Building slows down. For the past several years, one of the consistent bright spots for the marketplace has been the pace of new construction taking place at the ag retail level. In fact, during both the 2014 and 2015 CropLife 100 surveys, close to 80% of respondents said spending the same amount or more money on this part of their business was planned in the coming year.
But this is apparently no longer the case. Based upon the surveys currently logged in our database, only 57% of respondents plan to maintain or increase their spending on plant construction and renovation in 2017.
As always, I must caution that some of the numbers/percentages being discussed in this column could end up changing once the rest of the surveys are tabulated. But no matter what way you slice it, 2016 should end up being an interesting year for ag retail.
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