CropLife Retail Week: CropLife 100 News, Lack of Farm Internet Access, Biosurvey Data

Eric Sfiligoj and Lara Sowinski discuss the 2024 CropLife 100, a report on farmer internet access, and new research on biological pesticides.

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*The following is a partial and edited transcript.
Eric Sfiligoi: Hello and welcome to the latest edition of CropLife Retail Week. I’m your editor, Eric Sfiligoj, and CropLife and CropLife Iron are back again to talk farming with my favorite person, Lara. Hey Laura, how are you doing?

Lara Sowinski: Wow. Thank you. Me too. My love. Has a new, new studio, new residence or whatever.

ES: What do I do? Yeah, that’s it. Yeah, this is it. As you know, we recently moved our Meister offices, so this is the presentation of our new studio for now. It’s still a work in progress, we’ll work on it, but yes, you know, it’s not. When I’m in the studio, you’ll see me in a slightly different background than you’re used to.

But most of our viewers won’t even notice, because our goal, of course, is to get the word out and provide a little entertainment in the process. And that’s why we’re here again this week. It’s fantastic. Now, Laura, of course, I want to tell you this, but it’s finally come around over the last week or so. It’s that time of year again, and I’ve sent out the 2024 CropLife 100 survey to the top 100 retailers in last year’s survey, and I’ve also added some companies that I discovered or that contacted me during that time and requested the form.

So, we opened it up, and if you guys are out there and the forms are still in your inbox, I was hoping to get them back by the end of August, which is September 1. I know that’s a Sunday, but, you know, I’m sure there will be people who can send it to me before then.

And we’ve already had about five people send the survey back. And, Laura, it’s always a little sad to send out surveys at this time of year because we always get responses from companies saying they’ve sold their company or their company hasn’t merged with anyone since the last time we surveyed them.

And I want to give a shout out to a company called Stanislaus Farm Supply in Modesto, California, which has been a member of the Top 100 for many years. I visited them in the early 2000s, and they replied to me with a CropLife 100 form attached, saying that they had become part of Valley Agronomic as of May 1. Valley Agronomic was also a very large company, I believe in the top 15 of the CropLife 100.

And I’m sure that when you combine the revenues of the two companies, the list goes up even more. But we’ll know when the Valley forms come in, which will hopefully come in later this month or early September. I don’t know what the numbers are going to be, but I just want to thank you, Stanislaus, for all that you’ve done with us over the years.

We’re going to miss you all. Yes, I agree. It’s interesting to compare how it changes from year to year in terms of the rankings. And as you said, companies get in need or unfortunately go out of business. So, as you said, I know we’re getting inquiries from companies that are new to us or definitely not on the list.

Right. Fill out the survey and send it back to Eric. Oh yeah. And then, before I share this with you guys, I just want to talk about one more thing. Of course, we’ve been talking a lot about ag tech these last few weeks because we recently hosted our Tech Hub Live event in Des Moines. So ag tech is top of mind for a lot of people.

But one of the things that comes with ag technology is, of course, connectivity and communication. And that usually means the internet. And I actually came across this article, I read a little bit and was a little surprised. It was about the 2022 U.S. Census data, and it said that agriculture, 22% of farmers still don’t have access to the internet as of 2022.

Yeah, I was surprised that the numbers were that high, and I was also surprised that just under a quarter of farmers’ markets still don’t have internet or no access to the internet, and then when you break it down by state, you know, most of the states that still lack internet access are in the South, with Mississippi actually leading the nation.

Maybe it’s not the right word, but the state with the highest percentage of farmers without internet access is Mississippi. In 2017, 66% of farmers in Mississippi had internet access. And in 2022, that number has increased, but it’s still 73.3%. So it’s surprising that in this day and age, there are people who unfortunately don’t have internet access.

That’s disappointing to read. Yeah, yeah, actually, that’s good news. I remember, I think last year, we reported on the federal effort to fund broadband across the United States and the numbers in general, and I thought that would be a good follow-up.

Let’s dig in a little bit and see what that’s all about. Yeah, no, that would be good as a follow-up. So, stay tuned, viewers. We’ll get back to you on that. So, hey, you said you had some things you wanted to share as well. So, I’ll hand this over to you, ma’am.

LS: Yes. Thank you. This is new research. The article itself is by one of my favorites, Jennifer Marsden at Funder Muse. This is a recent study by the Stratovation Group, which declares itself to be a lobbying group, along with the Fertilizer Association, the Agricultural Retailers Association. This correlates with what we found. As you know, we recently hosted Tech Hub Live and ran two workshops on drones and biopesticides in the row crop sector.

I spoke with participants and presenters of the Biology Workshop, Dr. Andrea Arias from Jord Bioscience and Jacob Parnell from Biome Makers, and there was a lot of good feedback: the workshop itself was well-received, the content was good, and there was an overall good impression from both participants and presenters.

And according to this study from Stratovation Group, 83% of U.S. field crop farmers and farmers know the term “biologics” in a 2022 survey, with awareness of biologics up 87% in 2024. Awareness of specific subcategories, such as bias stimulants and biofertilizers, increased 14%. That means that nearly half of U.S. field crop farmers, 45%, say they currently purchase or use biologics, up from 37% in the 2022 survey.

There were several comments in this article put together by Jennifer Marston about why we’re seeing an increase, and one of them is that conventional pesticide products, the chemicals that we’re talking about – dicamba, glyphosate, etc. – are contributing to that increase.

As you know, there are a lot of challenges with traditional chemical products. That’s why we’re seeing more awareness and use of biologics. But one of the things that really correlates with what we found in the Tech Hub Live workshop is more education, continuing education, on best practices for use and application and how, when and where to get the best performance.

So it’s exciting to see awareness and usage growing, and we also know that as more data becomes available, best practices will become more robust and help people achieve the return and expectations they want in terms of performance as they invest in and use it.

ES: So that was good news. Good news. Good to see the marketplace, good to see what you’ve experienced in the workshop at Tech Hub Live, good to see the smooth movement in a space that we’ve been watching for a while. All good. Yes. No. I just joined myself a few weeks ago.

At the Mosaic event in Illinois, there was a talk about biologics, of course, by the Bioscience Group, a company that is in that field, and it was interesting, and the speaker said something I’d never heard before, which is that most biologics are lumped together with pesticides, and advisors to growers say they’re adjuncts to pesticides.

But the Mosaic people pointed out that a lot of biologics are living organisms, and if you want an analogy for a crop input, it’s a living organism, and it’s the seed that determines how you use it in the field. So their proposal was to treat biologics like seeds, not like crop protection or traditional crop protection products.

Well, as I said, I wrote an article about it, it’s in the newsletter and online at Croplife.com. If you want to see what the Mosaic folks have to say about biocontrol agents, you can look it up for yourself. Yes, in fact, we had an exchange last week, because I had the opportunity to visit the Mosaic offices in Tampa, Florida, earlier this year.

LS: And, you know, Matt Sauder, who heads the biosciences division of the company. He mentioned that, and I thought that was a very interesting take. So, on that note, I definitely recommend you read Eric’s article in the newsletter. It’s a good article. I like it. It’s a good deal. So, yeah, of course it’s summer now, we’re getting towards the end of summer.

ES: My son is getting ready to go back to school, and I think parents who want a summer break or a postponement are getting ready to get their kids back in school, but parents are still happy, and the kids have somewhere to go for about 6-8 hours a day.

Anyway, one of the events happening at the end of August is, of course, the annual Midwest Agricultural Industry Expo, the MAGIE Show, in Bloomington, Illinois. This is taking place in the middle of next week, and I’ll be attending with the CropLife staff and touring the Bloomington venues.

And we’ll see what’s in terms of new and existing equipment, upgraded equipment. Vehicles and drives, and a lot of food. Of course, pork on a skewer is one of my favorites. I always eat about six of them, and I’m sure I’m not the only one because it’s so tasty. Also, because it’s pork on a skewer, you can eat it while you’re walking and it’s not too messy.

It’s a little bit different than an ice cream cone that might melt in the heat. But I will be at the MAGIE show. In next week’s video, I will be showcasing highlights from the show with pictures and hopefully video clips. And then of course, I will announce who the 2024 Show Stopper Award winner is. Well, I know already a lot of companies have sent me little tidbits saying, here’s our product, come take a look, and we think we should win because of this.