Feedback From IFCA: Growers Looking To Cut

For anyone paying attention to the agricultural marketplace lately, the numbers are ugly. Between 2014 and 2015, grower-customer income dropped in half, from more than $100 billion to slightly over $50 billion. With less dollars to work with, the talk at many of last year’s late season trade shows was that big cutbacks in crop input spending were on the way for 2016.

And this still seems to be the case. I’ve just returned from the annual Illinois Fertilizer & Chemical Association (IFCA) meeting in Peoria, IL, and many of the exhibitors at that event echoed the comments from their colleagues made at the end of 2015. “Growers are looking to cut,” said more than one attendee.

For the most part, many ag retailers were anticipating grower-customers would cut back on their macronutrient use in 2016, primarily phosphorus and potash. Starter fertilizer use also seems like it will experience a pullback as well. But according to IFCA attendees, the cutbacks coming this spring go back even further into the crop input supply chain.

“Many of our growers are looking at the types of seeds they will be planting in 2016, trying to find the cheapest variety they can get,” said one IFCA exhibitor. “And most of these will be untreated, which will be a first for many of the growers we work with.”

I remember many years ago being told at an industry event that all the grower-customers’ crop input decisions start with the seed. Seems like this notion will take on an entirely new meaning as agriculture moves into spring 2016.