CropLife Retail Week: Tariffs Discussion, Landus Layoffs, and Louisville Bound

Eric Sfiligoj and Lara Sowinski talk about the proposed trade tariffs, a round of layoffs at a leading cooperative, and the upcoming National Farm Machinery Show in Louisville, KY.

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*Below is partial and edited transcript:

This episode of CropLife Retail Week, brought to you by Liberty Ultra herbicide from BASF.

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

Lara Sowinski: I’m doing well, thank you. I see we both look like farmers today. Lately, we look the part. I was going to say we get the denim.

Mine’s black, yours is blue. But we got the memo about wearing denim, so that’s. That is cool. I like that.

ES: Yeah. And I’m hoping. And I know, you know, we’re here in Ohio. We’re gearing up for, I guess, a pair of storms potentially moving through the area, mostly freezing rain, which I don’t know if you ask me. I think it’s more annoying than snow, but, because you just cannot get any traction on it. But, hopefully you’re avoiding all this stuff down there in El Paso.

LS: Yeah. This, this past week, we’ve had record breaking highs. I think we’re, we’ve been up in the upper 70s, and I think we’re flirting with 80, as we wrap up the week.

ES: I’m hoping that by the end of the month, when we’re all gathered for the Commodity Classic in Denver, that we are as fortunate with the weather because I know Denver weather can be hit or miss in early March. And we will again, we’ll know in about a month how things went there. And we can update the viewers accordingly.

So absolutely. Yeah. So, hey, we’ll start off, with you. I think you want to talk about something that’s been in the news a lot lately, and that would be a particular, I guess you’d call it tax on goods, but I’ll let you talk about that, if you will.

LS: As you mentioned, of course, tariffs are the big news at the moment. So as we stand currently and again, you know, obviously a fluid topic, things can change. But the Trump administration’s, tariffs on Mexico and Canada at this moment are paused for 30 days, pending negotiations and so forth. However, China, Trump has imposed, tariffs on Chinese goods. And likewise, what’s important for our audience, what has China done?

For its retaliatory tariffs. So as of February 4th, China has, said it will, retaliate with, a 15% tariff on, imports of U.S coal and liquefied natural gas, LNG with 10% tariffs assessed on crude oil and machinery and pickup trucks. And these tariffs, will go in place, become effective on February 10th.

The Wall Street Journal’s reporting, is calling this more of a bump than a roadblock for tractor suppliers. The good news, indeed, is that, at least for the time being, U.S commodity exports to China are not included. And what China has released and again, this came up from China on February 4th.

Tariffs effective on February 10th. Some good reporting from Mitch Galloway farm news media. This was on Michigan Farm News.com. Specifically when it comes to ag machinery, China’s tariffs on U.S ag equipment includes dryers, portable sprayers, plows, no till grain seeders, potato planters, fertilizer applicators and other ad machines such as harrows and tillers.

It’s worth noting. And again, this is really good reporting. The U.S International Trade Administration noted that, in recent years, China has made in a real effort to move from more labor intensive farming to more mechanized farming and as a result, has really been, ramping up imports of ag equipment. The ITA International Trade Administration, says when it comes to U.S. aid equipment manufacturers, high end products sectors, including precise harvest machinery, advanced irrigation, drainage and storage systems, rain drying equipment, IoT technology, as well as supply chain and farm management systems are the sectors that China is, increasingly buying again as it goes from labor intensive to net mechanized front farming. So, you know, again, it could be worse, for sure. Hopefully this will, I think it’s notable not only the Wall Street Journal but other media sources, kind of, you know, again, that the tone, when she was talking about this, etc., it doesn’t seem as acrimonious, I guess, as it is.

It could be. So, hopefully this will be, a step towards something that gets worked out, a pause, maybe similar to Mexico and Canada. So we’ll see. But, that’s where we stand at this, this moment.

ES: All right. Well, thanks for that update. And of course, obviously we’re recording this video a little earlier in the week, so who knows, maybe things will have changed radically by Saturday when this video actually drops.

But, we shall see if that happens. Viewers, we will update you accordingly. So all right? Well, hey, besides tariffs, one other thing. I know you and I miss Lara, have been talking about a lot lately on videos of course is artificial intelligence AI and I have a news item related to that. This took place back in January. We found out our friends at Landis Cooperative, one of the CropLife 100 and retailers had let go 10% of its workforce, about its 55 employees. And, the news release did announce this layoff. Said that the reason for this wasn’t because of financial performance by the cooperative. It had to do with the adoption of technology.

Apparently the cooperative is now going to be employing. Let me see if I can find the item. Exactly. Or introducing data gathering and consolidating systems that use AI to help farmer farmers assess their crops and field needs. So that is the reason that folks were being let go. They were sort of, as was, they said, right sizing the operation in conjunction with the new technology that they’re going to be using going forward to help their customers work out their prescriptions in the field.

So, interesting. We talk about it again, not only, of course, and but in journalism as well, any other sector virtually that’s out there. The impacts of AI, you know, the positive way to look at it, perhaps maybe, you know, again, almost like the more labor intensive, low level work freeing up employees to add more value.

But, you know, there’s no way to sugarcoat when people are let go. I mean, these are parts of the story that’s just not pleasant to be honest with. You know, it isn’t. But again, I know folks in our industry have talked for years about how they’ve had trouble finding the workforce, the labor, you know, the number of people that actually do some of the jobs for them.

So I know folks have said that, you know, the AI, adoption would probably help because you were people could do more. You know, I know the old cliche, do more with less, but it sounds like that’s still in force, so. Right now. All right, well, hey, before we go on with our, video this week, here is a quick note from our sponsor for this week’s video.

Well, Laura, of course, as, as we’re airing this video, of course, we’re now into early February and getting closer to the middle of the month. And, oh, for the lovers out there, of course, that means Valentine’s Day. But for those in agriculture, Valentine’s Day usually drops right around one of the bigger events for the winter season.

That’s the National Farm Machinery Show that takes place in Louisville, Kentucky. Now, this year, that event does go over Valentine’s Day. It starts on Wednesday, the 12th of February and runs through Saturday the 15th, which is when the tractor pull takes place. But, for those of us on the CropLife staff that attend the show, we, we go in for the early part of the show to visit with folks on the show floor.

There’s usually about 900 exhibitors spread out over the Kentucky Exposition Center, and about 300,000 attendees roaming around looking at all the latest in anything agriculture. And for us, of course, that means ag equipment, ag technology and, you know, look for videos, you know, starting the week of Presidents Day from us regarding what we saw at the event and I will also be happy to report that the, CropLife Iron, our sister publication, presents the product of the year trophy every year.

And this year we’re presenting the trophy at the National Farm Machinery Show. So look for a video clip on that and the company and product that won the coveted award.