Top 10 Ag Retailers With the Most Facilities in 2023

The ag retail industry experienced a relatively quiet year for consolidation in 2023. Outside of the November announcement that Indiana-based farmer-owned cooperatives Co-Alliance Cooperative and Ceres Solutions Cooperative agreed to pursue a merger in 2024, there has been minimal activity on the M&A front in recent months.

That’s not to say the consolidation trend among CropLife 100 ag retailers has faded away. One just has to look back a few years to see that mergers and acquisitions each year are still alive and well, and perhaps the single biggest factor that influences our annual rankings.

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In 2022, The McGregor Company acquired two retailers in Central Oregon — Inland Chemical Service and Sherman County Farm Chemical. Then in May 2022, CropLife 100 company Mid Kansas Cooperative (MKC) officially merged with Progressive Ag Cooperative.

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In 2021, we saw Co-Alliance and Harvest Land Coop merge, as well as Landmark Services Cooperative and Countryside Cooperative, and NEW Cooperative and MaxYield Cooperative. Also that year, long-time CropLife 100 companies Alceco/Ag Partners and First Cooperative merged and later became known as AgState.

These deals were on the heels of other recent CropLife 100 consolidation, including MKC purchasing fellow Kansas-based ag retailer Mid-West Fertilizer, Simplot Grower Solutions buying Pinnacle Agriculture Distribution, and three hundred-million dollar cooperatives in the Mid-South region — Greenpoint AG, Tennessee Farmers Cooperative, and Agri-AFC — combining their retail businesses.

Consolidation not only impacts companies moving up and down (and off) the CropLife 100 rankings, it also has a huge impact on the number of retail locations each has to serve their grower-customers. Take Nutrien Ag Solutions, for example. The company reported that it now has 1,500 outlets in its family of locations. This was due in large part to its acquisition of Van Horn in 2019.

Consolidation has also meant fewer retailers have at least 100 stores to their name. In 2023, that number shrunk to just eight companies. Taking it a step further, only 10 CropLife 100 retailers now have more than 80 locations. Overall, these 10 ag retailers combined had a total of 3,719 locations, which is 71% of all CropLife 100 facilities. To find out which 10 companies — which included six dealerships and four cooperatives — have the most retail facilities (in reverse order), view the slideshow above.

Editor’s note: Companies included in the 2023 CropLife 100 listings were limited to independent dealerships and cooperatives that offer fertilizer, crop protection, seed, and custom application services. Figures do not include a host of services, such as data management, consulting/scouting, or grain elevator revenue. Dealerships and cooperatives are ranked in order by total sales in their respective sales group.

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