The End of Another Odd Year in Agriculture

I have to be truthful — once 2020 was in the books, I really thought 2021 would be a much more “normal” year. Afterall, last year saw a substantial portion of the world in shutdown mode with a raging pandemic impacting much of the populous. It seemed to me once this starting waning, the agricultural world would get back to what I remembered prior to the start of 2020.

But for the most part, this didn’t happen. Oh, there was plenty of good news regarding ag retailers and profits (some of which we are sharing this month in the annual CropLife 100 report). The world, however, has not returned to normal.

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Take one of the biggest stories to come out of 2021, for example: Supply chain disruptions. Until now, there were always a few crop inputs ag retailers had trouble getting in stock for their grower-customers on an annual basis. Yet, in 2021, virtually EVERY crop input category was negatively impacted by a lack of supply/higher prices when it could be gotten. For instance, nitrogen fertilizer prices were averaging around $1,000 per ton during the fall application season and popular herbicides such as glyphosate were costing 300% more in 2021 than they did during the 2020 fall season.

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Even worse, much of this supply chain disruption tied back to just getting products where they needed to go. Indeed, the COVID-19 shutdowns affected production plant capabilities. Workers furloughed during the pandemic didn’t necessarily come back, meaning trucks, barges, and railcars that previously had been available for service weren’t once the spring 2021 season rolled around. Worse yet, ships bringing supplies to the U.S. from Asia were stuck for months off the West Coast, waiting for port slots to open up and unloading crews to begin working on their cargos.

More troubling for those in agriculture, most industry insiders predict these supply chain disruptions will last well in the fall 2022 timeframe for several reasons (including the 2022 Olympic Games taking place in China during the month of February). As a result of this, most crop input costs will likely remain high throughout the 2022 spring planting season. It’s for this reason that many experts are advising companies, growers, and ag retailers to “plan out at least one year ahead” when considering what materials their need access to keep their businesses running without interruption for the better part of 2022.

Speaking for the upcoming new year, I am slightly more hopeful that some of the “hangover” 2021 experienced from the trials of 2020 will finally start lifting from the industry’s collective heads. Overall, I’m not entirely convinced that the world will ever return to looking like it did, before anyone had heard about COVID-19. But with two years of adaptation under its belt, I’m certain ag retailers and their grower-customers will be in a much better position to work within the confines for this “new normal” once the 2022 season draws to a close.

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