2021 CropLife 100 Preview: Carbon Credits, Supply Chain Woes Among Key Issues Facing Top Ag Retailers
November 29, 2021 For the past several years, one of the highlights of our CropLife Magazine November issue is sharing some of the early findings from our annual CropLife 100 survey of the nation’s top ag retailers. Here are three very interesting tidbits I can share using this preliminary data.
Grower Consolidation Slows. For many years now, the agricultural community has been in the grips of a consolidation trend. About seven years ago, suppliers of crop inputs and equipment led the charge. Today, ag retail consolidation has really sped up. Throughout all these moves, consolidation among grower-customers has remained fairly constant.
Until 2021, that is. For many years, CropLife has tracked grower consolidation as a part of the annual CropLife 100 survey. Most times, approximately 6 in 10 respondents have said that this trend continued and expanded in their parts of the country during the current growing season. But in 2021, this hasn’t been the case. According to the 2021 survey, only 39% of respondents saw grower consolidation speed up in their markets this year. The majority, 57%, said the merging of customers remained the same during 2021 as in 2020. Whether this is a pause in the grower consolidation trend due to higher crop prices/more government money coming into the market or the beginnings of some stabilization in grower-customer size remains to be determined.
Some Role in Carbon. Throughout the 2021 growing season, one of the most talked about topics involved carbon credits. Overall, the grower and supplier communities have embraced these as a way for the industry to promote responsible agricultural practices.
But what role might ag retailers play in this space? According to the 2021 CropLife 100 survey, the results are mixed. Right now, 38% of respondents foresee ag retailers playing a big role in the carbon credits movement, while 53% think the market can only play a small role in this effort. Generally, the larger ag retailers are more positive on the industry playing a bigger role than the smaller ones are. The remaining 9% don’t see ag retailers playing “any role” in the carbon credits initiative.
Supply Headaches Abound. Rarely in the 38 years of the CropLife 100 survey does a question receive close to 100% of the votes, but this almost happened on the 2021 survey. Throughout 2021, the one constant problem for many ag retailers was simply getting products to sell. So, CropLife asked respondents if they had supply issues during the current season and if they expected this problem to persist. Incredibly, 95% of ag retailers agreed this was an issue/would be the case going forward. Three percent believed the supply problems would end once the calendar turned to 2022. Only 2% said their operations had no supply chain issues during the 2021 growing season.
So, there’s a brief look at what this year’s CropLife 100 survey has discovered thus far. Watch for the full report next month.
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