Early Insights from the 2025 CropLife 100: Stability, Smart Tech, and Surprising Resilience
November 17, 2025 Every year over the past four decades, CropLife® Magazine has annually collected information from the nation’s top ag retailers to compile our CropLife 100 list. Each year of surveys brings its own set of confirmations about what’s happening in the marketplace and what new trends are beginning to become known. There are also a few surprises along the way.
Going into the 2025 CropLife 100, I admit I was a bit apprehensive. Given how much uncertainty and financial chaos seems to be present in the agricultural world today, I feared the nation’s top ag retailers would have a tough financial year.
However, this doesn’t appear to be the case. According to the preliminary data from the 2025 CropLife 100 surveys, the top ag retailers will have overall revenues this year on par with what they recorded during the 2024 growing season, topping out at just over $43 billion.
I was also fearful that, with revenues projected to decline, dozens of CropLife 100 ag retailers would “disappear” from the list through consolidation. But 98 of the companies from the 2024 CropLife 100 remain on this year’s list. Furthermore, the missing two still exist as companies, being simply displaced from the 2025 CropLife 100 due to other ag retailers improving their year-over-year sales.
Among the surprises was how CropLife 100 ag retailers are adjusting to the new reality of Smart Tech. Reflecting this rapidly evolving trend, CropLife asked a pair of questions on the 2025 survey looking at Smart Tech adoption and planning for 2026.
The first of these asked respondents how they believed Smart Tech systems and practices would benefit the ag retail world. Twenty-two percent said they believed Smart Tech would help their grower-customers better manage their crop input costs. Another 21% thought (or hoped) that Smart Tech adoption would aid the entire agricultural industry — from grower-customers to ag retailers — with the ongoing quest for labor help.
Still, the vast majority of respondents — 57% — thought that Smart Tech would be a great tool to help ag retailers and their grower-customers in their decision-making processes.
Given this percentage, it shouldn’t be that surprising how the nation’s top ag retailers plan to invest in Smart Tech for the 2026 growing season. Instead of looking at hardware-driven systems such as autonomous vehicles or drones for imaging or application work, the majority of 2025 CropLife 100 survey respondents — 38% — are planning to invest in software products and apps to help their customers work through the upcoming growing season. Another 19% are looking to buy artificial intelligence (AI) systems to help with this effort.
So, that’s a quick snapshot of the early returns from the 2025 CropLife 100. Obviously, some of these percentages could change as the missing CropLife 100 surveys are entered into our database. Look for the final report and company listings to appear in the December 2025 edition of CropLife and online throughout the month of December.
Subscribe Today For
