CropLife Retail Week: IFCA Update, AI in Agriculture, and More Cotton Beltway News

Eric Sfiligoj and Lara Sowinski discuss this week’s Illinois Fertilizer & Chemical Association (IFCA) meeting and provide more updates from the Cotton Beltway meeting.

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*Below is a partial and edited transcript:

Eric Sfiligoj: Hello. Welcome to another edition of CropLife Retail Week. I’m Eric Sfiligoj, editor of CropLife. Here again with Lara Sowinski. Lara, how are you doing?

Lara Sowinski: I’m doing good.

ES: I know most of the country has been in a deep freeze, and I know for our friends down south, they are dealing with a sort of white powder.

That is not the stuff that’s on bennies. But is actually snow. So that, I’m sure that’s a bit of a, culture shock for a lot of our friends down in places like New Orleans or in Pensacola, Florida, or even Atlanta, Georgia. You know, I saw a I saw a video online of people snowball fighting on Bourbon Street.

That must have been fun. I guess you missed out when you were in New Orleans a few weeks back, but, that that that’s something I never would have guessed a video of would be not CGI generated because I just you would not expect it. But there it was. So. Exactly. Yeah. No, it’s kind of kind of strange to see it, but yeah, especially it may be linked lingering on because the temperatures are so cold.

I don’t know, I really I don’t know, but I, you know, I would have more sympathy for people in the South. But then again, you guys live in the South because you’re trying to get away from the snow. So I guess that’s our little, our little gift to you from up north. Deal with it for a day or two before it goes back up to 70 degrees. And you guys wearing shorts again. So.

LS: Just lost all our viewers in Florida and Georgia and Louisiana.

ES: I know, I’m sorry. I just let you off. All right, well, hey, listen, since it is winter, the middle of winter, of course, this is the time of year when there’s a lot of state associations having their annual meetings. And I actually was privileged enough to, go to one in Peoria, Illinois.

Our friends, the Illinois Fertilizer and Chemical Association, had their annual meeting, and that took place on the 21st through the 23rd of January this past week. Was a good meeting is always, lots of folks there talking about what’s going on in the marketplace, getting ready for the season ahead. And I know our friend Kevin K.J. Johnson, who is the president of IFCA, gave the state of the association and the, and the world for ag and in Illinois and, he mentioned the fact that in 2025, they got a few priority on the plate.

One is a lot of states apparently do continuing education versus one test. One one single test through the year for their, for their applicators. And I guess they’re looking to pass legislation in the spring session in Illinois that they’re going to allow licensed applicator ers to take continuing education classes instead in the state. So that’s one of their priorities for the upcoming year.

They’re also looking to expand the restricted class B CDL licenses in Illinois so they can get more drivers for logistics purposes. And FCA is teaming up with their friends at the Ag Retailers Association. And they are to trying to build a national, anhydrous ammonia online safety class. So, that’s something they’re going to be working on here in 25.

And then the other news, K.J. Johnson mentioned that, they’re going to be moving the FCA offices. They’re going to stay in Bloomington. We’re going to be basically going from their building now across the street, and they’re going to be taking over the old application training center that was run by the Asmark Institute there in Bloomington. So, going to be just a stone’s throw from the fairgrounds where they hold the Maggie show every summer, so.

LS: Well, That’s exciting. Yeah. Lots of, good stuff on the agenda for FCA. All good things. I like that online training course, and, like you said, continuing it. Good. Good things. Good way to go about it. Yep. Agreed. And one other thing. Then, again, one of the things they do at every FCA annual meeting, there’s several speakers talking about topics, that folks are interested in going on in the marketplace, including the Endangered Species Act, which did come up.

And then I had a session talking about whether, of course, always important for the growers going into an upcoming growing season. But then we had a speaker, Brian Lutz from Corteva Agri Science, who spoke about AI and agriculture in the future of AI in agriculture. And here I’ve got a little video clip of Brian talking about what is going on with AI today in agriculture and how the trends may play out here in 2025.

So have a listen to this.

Brian Lutz: Has in our personal lives. But also we lost him. The industry. But it’s still hard to find examples of how gender and AI is being used. And I think that’s pretty important because, like I said, there’s hundreds of billions of dollars that are flowing into, from petrochemical tech makers. And it’s really all spurred by gender that are largely spurred by gender.

And, and it’s still a bit, hard to find examples of, where does this halting, a big part of that answer is, as you haven’t heard, a gender. Okay. You’re going to hear about that as we go through 20, 25 or 2026. But this is really starting to build the applications or the tools that are going to create the demand for generative models.

And these large language models. So an agent is really, at the core of all of these agents is a large language model build off of those Transformers. But then it’s, it’s effectively craft and software. So there’s got to be some human interface, your ability to interact with the model. Maybe some of, you know, this, but one of the things that really sparked the water, that’s when OpenAI released chat.

GPT, that were earlier versions of the GE model that were available that, developers can then through an API for base of what really, caused it to take off by just putting it on a website so that you don’t have to be a software developer, to access more than just access it through a website. And, and suddenly, you know, it’s a really cool experience.

I don’t know how many of you use it, but it’s kind of phenomenal that you work with the model. First time to see how capable is of conversing with you. Like a human. But just that interface that was a key part to. And then, of course, for an agent, I mean, an agent by definition has to be able to take some kind of action.

So there’s got to be some type of tools or ways and, these agents can respond. And then of course, there’s some specific game that the agents are given, given to work with. If you have asked me, maybe even just a year ago. Well, hey, you know, the future is going to be a bit more agent and I.

And that justifies all of the investment we’re seeing. I would’ve been extremely skeptical. But over the last year, I’d say we’re really starting to see, I think, a lot more of the potential in these agents in the future. And it’s driven by two things. One, the models at the center of the agents are evolving very quickly, but then also all of the tools and the ability that the agents, can, can access is, is, improving.

ES: So that’s what Brian Lutz had to say from Corteva regarding AI and agriculture. Again, Lara, I know I’m, I’m very taken by how everything is so rapidly developing. I mean, you know, at one point, Brian showed a timeline of when I first was introduced as a concept or thought about as a concept back in the 1950s to where we are today, where these programs are running billions of calculations per minute per second.

LS: And, just, you know, he had mentioned that or a company like Corteva, I mean, you know, to discover new molecules for use in crop protection. You know, he said it used to take years and a lot of manpower. And now these, like, you know, they can they can find these proteins that will bind to a molecule in, in a fraction of the time.

So it’s really, really fascinating to watch this all develop. Yeah. It’s I’m glad that you mentioned he was he was there. If you recall, he, Brian was a keynote speaker at the vision 2024, conference. Right. He mentioned the same thing in particular with Corteva R&D. Just the impact that Gen AI has had on the research and development, the timeline, the capital required for that, etc.

It was incredible. So, yeah, that’s pretty cool. I’m glad he’s out and about spreading the word. Yep, yep, he did a good job. So yeah, I’m sure anybody who was there hearing him in person talk, again, if you get the chance. I mean, I know he’s made a couple of speeches, like you said, over the last couple of years, and I’m sure he will be making more, so please, partake if you can’t.

ES: So. Well. All right, so, Miss Lara, I know you had a trip recently, down to the Beltwide conference down in New Orleans where there was snowball fighting the other day. But when you were there, a little warmer. But, our friends, from the cotton industry were all gathered. So I think you have some news to share on that front, correct?

LS: Yeah, I do, I just, and I believe I mentioned it, quickly, the last time we were together on retail week here, but, just really want to say, what a wonderful conference. Just felt like cotton conference. The annual conference, again, day one, was devoted to the EPA’s work plan for NASA. Fantastic.

Collection of speakers here. Kelly Tindall from EPA. Clayton Myers, USDA, Leah Dizzy and Ashley Frank from Compliance Services International, Stanley Culpeper, University of Georgia, and chair brewer Steve Hensley from the National Cotton Council. One of the things that, they mentioned was the the timeline. Again, we saw the final herbicide strategy released, in late August.

This past August, Stanley Culpeper during his presentation. We know that, by the end of March, we will have the final insecticide strategy released. And, he made a point of saying, look, when we saw the draft version of the herbicide strategy in 2022, we were it kind of took our breath away. My words not not his.

But he said, you know, over the course of again, the whole industry coming together, academics, government and industry, you know, growers, retailers both that by the time the final herbicide strategy was released, much it changed and it was something that, Stanley said that we, we could work with as farmers and growers and retailers, so again, you know, we’ll be keeping a close eye on that, but, I think, you know, and you mentioned it, I Afca, you know, a lot of talk about ESA and what that means.

And again, happy to see it on the Beltway cotton Conferences program. CDA will have, a lot of content devoted to this topic, and their upcoming meeting in early May in Florida. So I think that now with, you know, certainly there there’s a lot to this. But as the industry comes together, education awareness speakers, people talking about it, certainly our special report in December, I think everyone’s feeling a little more comfortable with it in, in that, you know, this is something that we’re just going to, you know, it’s here.

Let’s deal with it. Let’s figure out how we can maybe mitigate what tools can we get. How do we understand this? The question I had, when I was in New Orleans. So I, asked the panel, these folks on the FCA panel here about the compliance part of it. And again, thinking back to food Safety Modernization Act in 2011, other sizable compliance regs that have, been released, you know, of over the years, whether it’s from the FDA or whomever, to typically, you see, like a grace period, like, you know, something that’s so that massive it’s not you know, I might feel the feeling was always that the government doesn’t want to be the we you know, we got you, you know, year that that it’s kind of a let’s enforce but a grace period so that we can educate while we’re doing it. Because again, most everyone certainly is in a, you know, good faith effort trying to understand and comply with these things. So, I asked them about the, you know, what, you know, when it comes to compliance.

And, Chad Myers from USDA did say, look, we’re not really quite there yet. These things are still kind of rolling out. We’re just seeing the handful of label changes, etc.. So, but that’s something that, you know, people do have questions about. What are the risks for the the applicators, the growers, and. Cetera. So, again, by the end of March, we’ll see the final insecticide strategy, which should be, you know, every bit as, big as the herbicide strategies.

I think these two in particular, the herbicide and the insect insecticide, were ones that were for, you know, keeping an eye on, April 26th. We should see the draft fungicide strategy. It seems like a long ways off, but just putting it out there. The final fungicide strategy, is due by the end of November 2026.

And, just one more thing from, the Beltway conference. Just to shout out, Jim, step in our calling an editor for kind of our we attended an event on, the evening of January 15th. So each year, the university extension cotton specialists select the colleague to recognize as, as the Beltway extension cotton specialist of the year.

Then McKnight, PhD, Texas A&M Agrilife Extension Service, was this year’s winner. Really a great evening. And we heard from Ben and his colleagues and, really great event. So this award event, sponsored by Tim Debre, PhD, cotton technical product and strategy lead for bear. So congratulations to Ben McKnight. It was it was great.

Again, what a learn learning experience. For me to understand, you know, a little bit more about cotton. Understand, you know, the shared, things, with regards to corn and being growers, for instance, but certainly, very unique commodity. And, and sector as well. But, it was great. So very good. Well, yeah, the ESA stuff, of course, that’s going to be something we’re following throughout the year, of course.

ES: And viewers, you know, please pay attention to Crop Life’s publications and our website and our videos because we as, as information comes in, we’ll be reporting it to you as we get it and try to give you some perspective on what it might actually mean for everyone. I’m going to be curious, Lara, again, to see, you know, when these things, when these rules are all in place and then you know, how how the rules are going to be enforced, you know, who’s actually going to be watching the enforcement of, of these, these new, these new labels and the, the label changes and, and what, you know, you know, that’s that’s going to be really key to a lot of this, because, again, you can you can put a lot of regulations out there. But if there’s no watchdog, no champion for it, then, you know, how, how, how onerous could it be for everybody involved? So I’m going to be curious to watch that. So yeah, just kind of an answer to that.

So I think the, individual state departments of agriculture will be certainly, you know, taking a very prominent compliance and enforcement role. But you’re right. I think particularly in this came up as well, during the conference with the new administration, changes again, to staffing, to funding for the agencies and so forth, and the programs themselves.

What changes may or may not happen? So, still so, so much, you know, yet to be known, but, yeah, you’re right. That’s why I will be covering this topic for sure, the next year. And you know it, of course, like I said, as I started our program today, you know, the fact that this is that season where a lot of the state associations are having their annual meetings and, you know, I would I would I just throw it out there.

I mean, you know, folks, if you’re not members of your state associations and haven’t been up until now, you know what? Going forward, you may want to consider membership because, those folks, since they know the legal fees and they know all the legislature, people that need to be known, and can get into their, offices and be heard, you know, maybe supporting them, on your behalf is not a bad idea.