The Original 17: A Shout Out to the 17 CropLife 100 ‘Lifers’

Eric Sfiligoj By Eric Sfiligoj|December 13, 2023
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Over the course of 40 years, plenty of changes typically take place in the business world. One-time corporate behemoths such as Sears, Kodak, and Blockbuster Video have gone from being ranked No. 1 in their respective marketplaces to bankrupt and barely remembered over the span of that time.

In the agricultural world, too, this phenomenon is also in play. Indeed, looking through a December 1984 copy of Farm Chemicals magazine (which contained the first CropLife 100 listings), observers will find ads for long-gone crop protection product manufacturers such as Shell Chemical Co., Rhone-Poulenc, USS Agri-Chemicals, and Cyanamid. This also extends into the equipment space as well.

And in truth, the CropLife 100 isn’t immune to this trend. Since that first listing appeared back in December 1984, 83 companies ranked on the 2023 CropLife 100 are different than the ones that appeared 40 years ago. However, there are 17 companies on this year’s CropLife 100 list of the nation’s top ag retailers that were also present during the first rankings from 1984. A few of these are now doing business under different names (due to mergers or corporate name changes along the way), but these ag retailers still can trace at least part of their histories back to that first CropLife 100 publication.

In the slideshow above, we feature the “original 17” ag retailers by comparing how they rank today vs. that very first appearance on the very first CropLife 100.

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Sfiligoj is the Editor for both CropLife and CropLife IRON magazines. He travels regularly to cover industry events and has been dedicated to the ag retail industry since he joined the staff in 2000. See all author stories here.

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