CropLife 100 Sneak Peek: A Glimpse Into Ag Retailer Profitability, Dicamba Use

As years go, 2020 has seemed like one long unending string of bad news at times. Through it all, good news, of any kind, has been hard to come by.

But how deeply would this “negative atmosphere of the everyday” extend into agriculture? Here at CropLife® magazine, we wondered this as we compiled the statistics from our annual survey of the nation’s top ag retailers, the CropLife 100. As always, we are offering a sneak peek at the findings as the last few surveys are still coming into our office.

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Overall, the picture this year’s CropLife 100 survey paints for ag retailers is a mixed bag. With approximately 70 surveys in-house as I write this column, overall revenue for the nation’s top ag retailers is trending between $31.5 and $31.8 billion. This is down from the 2019 CropLife 100 total of $32.3 billion. But this doesn’t tell the entire story.

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Profitability Up. One of the questions on the 2020 survey asks ag retailers to describe their level of profitability compared with the year before. For 2020, almost half of survey respondents (46%) said their companies expect to make more profits this year than they did during 2019. Another 30% indicated their profit margins would match those achieved in the prior year. Only 24% said their profits would be lower than in 2019. Given how difficult a year 2020 has been for the overall economy, to have slightly more than three-quarters of CropLife 100 ag retailers showing better profits or flat ones from 2019 is a very positive development.

Dealing with COVID-19. Of course, the major event impacting virtually everything in 2020 was the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. This shuttered many businesses and saw the cancellation of in-person industry trade show. But early on, the government designated ag retailers as “essential workers,” meaning their operations continued with some adjustments to guarantee safety (such as working with grower-customers remotely).

But will this digital communications trend persists once the pandemic ends? According to most respondents, no. Based upon the CropLife 100 data, 62% of ag retailers expect their grower-customers to resume in-person interaction once the “all-clear” is sounded regarding COVID-19.

Declining Dicamba. For agriculture, the other big news of 2020 was the vacating of dicamba that occurred back in early June. This has led to many questions regarding what will happen to this popular herbicide and its cropping system going forward.

Significantly, only 2% of CropLife 100 ag retailers believe dicamba will remain in a “growth mode” going into 2021 no matter what happens. Another 33% think that dicamba use in the industry has peaked. The remaining 65% believe dicamba use “will begin to decrease.”

As always, this represents a mere snapshot of the early findings from the 2020 CropLife 100 survey and the final numbers may be different. So please look for the complete report in the December 2020 edition of CropLife magazine.

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