CropLife Retail Week: 2025 Commodity Classic Review, Ag Secretary Rollins Addresses Attendees

Eric Sfiligoj and Lara Sowinski report on the highlights from this year’s big trade show in Denver, CO.

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*Below is a partial and edited transcript:

Eric Sfiligoj: Hello. Welcome to a special edition of CropLife Retail Week. I’m Eric Sfiligoj, editor, with Lara Sowinski on site at the 2025 Commodity Classic show in Denver. Lara. Hey, good to see you in person.

Lara Sowinski: Yeah. Yeah. And we’re again, we’re doing we’re doing this video in an odd format in an odd way, but, hope it comes out well.

ES: So for you viewers, I’m going to kick it over to Miss Lara. We have a few things to share regarding, the secretary of Agriculture, who was one of the speakers here, Brooke Rollins. And, Lara, you had some time to listen to her give a press briefing and, share with her.

LS: I did indeed. I think we were all, happily surprised that she was going to show up to Commodity Classic and, addressed the attendees, but she also included an impromptu, press conference prior to her main stage engagement. So, I was able to get a couple clips and a couple of things that she talked about. So the first clip she’s talking about, exploring some new export markets for U.S ag and, so here’s what she had to say about that.

Brooke Rollins: And then you have a whole host of regulations, that have been layered on over and over and over again. So there are a lot of factors. We are attacking it from all sides, putting together the plan that can hopefully begin to roll that back. I am planning to very aggressively, with President Trump’s permission, go out into the world and let’s expand our markets, and also make capital easier, especially for our farmers as we begin to build, hopefully, the next generation of our leaders, agriculture.

LS: Another question, from the, press folks that were there. At the press conference, one of the questions had to do with the assistance to producers. She kind of alluded to. Yes, there would be, but, was kind of absent as to specifics. When, where, how the only thing that she did say is that everything is on the table. Here’s that clip as well.

BR: Everything is on the table right now. Everything. I know that President Trump, whom I speak with regularly, realizes the state of the farm economy in this country. The last time I work for Secretary Perdue to ensure that we were able to make whole or at least as promised, obviously as imperfect, but as best as we could, some of those and also most of those are all who’ve been hurt.

But again, everything is on the table. We’re building the team of USDA to ensure that we have the structure and the plan in place to allow us to move very quickly.

ES: So the big, item without a doubt. Tariffs. As we’re recording this, this is Tuesday, March 4th. Woke up this morning to, tariffs in place for Canada, Mexico and China. And well we kind of poked around.

I think it’s fair to say, during our time here at Commodity Classic to get, kind of the vibe what people are expecting. Most were kind of moot on the point, to be honest with you. They didn’t want to, offer up an opinion, which kind of, understandably, given what, the stake right now. Not to mention that, frankly, we don’t know.

And until, I mean, there were some folks that we talked to that said we’re not even going to issue a statement because we kind of suspect that maybe things will change even within a 24 hour period. So again, as we’re recording this, maybe the tariffs will, be, an issue that’s resolved between now and when this airs.

But here’s another clip of, Secretary Rollins and, her comments on tariffs.

BR: There is no question everywhere I go and the sorts of states I’ve been to so far, we’ve had a lot of producers in to the USDA headquarters. When I’m in Washington, I’m sort of constantly trying to be talking to the hearing. Their concerns directly is very helpful for me personally. And and figuring out what the next steps are. Everyone is very concerned. And so ensuring that we have all of the data, the information that we need, understanding, the decisions that they’re being made that are being made, what implications those have.

Obviously, that is my role to take that to President Trump and to the team that is negotiating, that is working on those deals to ensure that those, concerns are heard effectively and that we have a plan in place to make sure that our farm community is not compromised. Thank you.

LS: So that’s a scoop. Again, it was good, that she did show up. A lot of enthusiasm for her, to be honest. Particularly with this crowd. However, candidly, folks are still looking for, kind of like, you know, sounds great, but we need a little more to hang our heads on, so.

ES: Yeah, and that’s the upshot. And, Lara, that was what I heard from folks, too, that no one, no one officially went on the record. But basically off the record, they said that they were hoping for more definitive details than we did get. They’d like the promises, but yes, some dates, some deadlines, some timing, would have been, a little more helpful.

LS: But we’re again, we’ll see what happens as we go through the year. Obviously, I know Brooke had said she’s only been on the job for so many weeks at this point, so there’s a lot of ground yet to go. So. Yep. All right. Well very good. Well, before I have my observations on the Commodity Classic here in Denver.

ES: So, hey, Lara, then, one of the added, following course Commodity Classic. It’s, a big event for the ag community. A lot of the, companies that exhibit here, they, they introduce new products that will be coming into the marketplace in time for the upcoming growing season.

This year was no exception, as you might imagine. Ag technology, smart ag, smart tech. That was, in evidence at a lot of company booths, the equipment manufacturing booths, a lot of it had to do it was grower facing, had to do with things for tractors and combines. But I’m happy to report that on the self-propelled sprayers side of the business, two companies we know, Case and New Holland, both had introduced new systems that are going to be, you know, to help the, applicators in the field when it comes to looking at brown on green weed control, from Case, they’re calling.

There’s Sense and Apply and New Holland’s calling. There’s Intellisense. Both of these systems run on the sense and act system, which, Raven Industries in augment introduced to the marketplace I think two years ago now. And, as I said, those, those systems are going to start being installed on the 2026 models of New Holland Guardian sprayers and the case Patriot 50 series and the Tridents.

So, look for those technology event advancements to be coming into the marketplace pretty soon. And then, Lara, one other observation is I, you know, people have for the last couple of years been talking about autonomy, autonomous vehicles in agriculture. And I attended a session at the Commodity Classic where the folks from Purdue University, they conducted a research survey of some growers.

And, the takeaway, they had an autonomy. Again, I’ve kind of wondered myself why autonomy hasn’t taken off a little faster in the marketplace. But based on their research, they said that autonomy is not really profitable for growers at this point. When it comes to replacing human labor, unless the human labor is, less than $30 per hour for those growers to be, you know, out laying that type of money for their row, for the, the labor to drive the vehicle versus having the vehicle be autonomous.

But they did point out the one thing autonomy offers is the, the amount of field that can be covered by an autonomous vehicle is much greater than it is using a human operator. So a good news, bad news scenario when it comes to autonomy. But, yeah, basically we’re not there just yet when it comes to autonomy, adoption and may not be for a little while.

Actually you know one other you know as we kind of wrap up the show here this week, some things that I was kind of struck with one, I will say that and I think you and I agree that when we stepped into the booth and checked in with folks, the sentiment overall was like, you know, we’re getting really good traffic.

We’re having good conversations. What? We’ve been talking about it CropLife. I know a little bit more about, hey, you know, this is a time to take a closer look, a more critical look at your business operations overall. Where can you make judicious cuts, if you will, and savings? A lot of folks were talking, let’s retrofit, let’s repair before we wholesale replace.

So there really being, again, kind of pragmatic given the time. But, that doesn’t mean that they’re not investing in things. I mean, the expectation is, sure, we will invest and we know we have to. But the ROI, you know, we it’s let’s de-risk it and let’s make sure we get a speedy, ROI. So but it was great.

Overall, I think, everyone was, happily surprised, you know, with the traffic and, and kind of the good talk. So, nice, nice bright spot. Yeah. And before we put it the break bright spot, and it was. And before we put it to bed, of course, the one thing to note is next year, the money class is going to be the 30th anniversary edition of the event taking place in San Antonio.

You’re now home state. Yes. So, again, we’ll have lots more between now and next year to talk about, I’m sure, regarding the upcoming show in the 2026 season. So for sure. And actually, one more, item I wanted to mention. So, we have a Biologicals and Innovator of the year. It’s not with crop life is with our sister pub, and I wanted to make sure that we kind of help them, pitch this, new award.

Deadline for applications or to submit, I should say is March 12th. So anyway, check it out. It’s really cool. I like what they’re doing. They’re recognizing farm farmers, that are using biological products. And, Yeah. So March 12th, check it out. Bio. You can tell us the list.