The Read from the Winter Agribusiness Shows So Far: ‘Hopeful’ for 2020
January 28, 2020 As anyone who has regularly covered the agricultural market will attest to, getting an accurate read on how the upcoming growing season will play out is always an uneven affair. No matter how much faith (or hope) people have in what a new year will bring, there are always unknown factors (such as weather) that can upend everything.
Given the kind of year 2019 was – with unplanted acres, extremely wet weather, and trade disputes thrown into the agricultural mix – I was particularly interested to find out the mood of attendees at two of January’s state association meetings: The Wisconsin Agribusiness Classic and the Illinois Fertilizer & Chemical Association Annual (IFCA) Event. For the most part, attendees to these two events were “hopeful” for a better 2020.
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Much of the talk among attendees at the Wisconsin Agribusiness Classic focused on the state’s suffering dairy industry, renewed herbicide-resistant weed pressures involving Palmer amaranth and waterhemp, and the expected surge in new E3 cropping systems.
Of course, there were significant differences between the two shows. For instance, in Wisconsin, much of the talk on the show floor in Madison focused on the state’s suffering dairy industry, renewed herbicide-resistant weed pressures involving Palmer amaranth and waterhemp, and the expected surge in new E3 cropping systems centered upon 2,4-D products. (In fact, the training session on E3 was standing room only.) In Illinois, there was much more emphasis on dicamba application training (since the state had one of the highest off-target complaint counts in the nation during the 2019 growing season) and proper fertilizer handling/safety.
But when it came to getting attendees’ feelings on how the 2020 growing season might perform, visitors to both shows had similar views. In general, most everyone felt that if the Phase One Trade Agreement between the U.S. and China eased issues between the two trading partners and Mother Nature was a bit kinder with dry weather during the spring, 2020 could see return some normalcy back to the ag marketplace very quickly.
“Let’s put it this way – we are hopeful for a better year this year,” said Tim McArdle, Vice President for BRANDT, Springfield, IL, said at IFCA.
So say we all!
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