CropLife Retail Week: CropLife 100 News, Farmer Internet Access Missing, and Biological Survey Data

Eric Sfiligoj and Lara Sowinski discuss the 2024 CropLife 100, a report on farmers’ internet access, and a new survey on organics.

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* Below is a partial and edited transcript:
Eric Sfiligoj: Hello. Welcome to another edition of CropLife Retail Week. I am Eric Sfiligoj, editor. CropLife and CropLife Iron here again with my favorite person in the world talking about agriculture with Lara. So, Laura, how are you?

Lara Sowinksi: Wow. Well, thank you. likewise. My favorite person. I have a new, new studio, new digs or something.

ES: what are you going Well yes. Yes, this one. You know, we recently moved offices in Meister, so this is the presentation of the new studio, for now. It is a it is a work in progress, but we will we will work on it, but. Yes. you know, you won’t. You will see me in a slightly different background when I am in the studio than you are used to.

But again, most viewers won’t notice because our goal is, of course, to spread information, little entertainment along the way. And, here we are again this week. So great. So, so, hey, Miss Laura, of course I wanted to mention, this, in the past week or so, I finally got around to. It’s that time of year when I sent out our 2024 CropLife 100 surveys to the top 100 retailers from last year’s survey, and also added a few companies I’ve discovered or reached out to in the meantime, and ask to get forms.

So we have you out. and I actually wanted to say, if you people could get out, if you have the form in your mailbox, I tried to get them back at the end of August. 1 September. I know it’s Sunday but, you know, we’ll, we’ll, you know, I’m sure some people can get it for me.

And, I already have about five people who have received survey forms back. And, and again, Laura, this time of year it’s a little, it’s always a little, sad when I send the forms because I always get notes back from companies saying that, you know, that they have sold the company or the company has never merged with anyone since our last survey.

And I wanted to give a shout out to one of the companies, long standing member of the top 100, Stanislaus Farm Supply in Modesto, California. I visited them in the early 2000s and they sent me a note back with the CropLife 100 form saying that as of May 1st they were now part of Valley Agronomic, which again, a very large company in the, in the CropLife , 100 in the top 15, I believe.

And, adding the revenues together, the two companies, I am sure they will increase them even further. The list. But we’ll see when I get into Valley form, hopefully later in the month or early September. What the, the numbers look like, but, but I just wanted to say, thank you, Stanislaus, for everything you’ve done with us over the years.

And we will miss you. Yes. I agree, it’s interesting to compare, you know, year after year how things change as far as the rankings. And as you said, companies are obliged or, unfortunately, sometimes go out of business. So, I know, as you mentioned, you know, we’ve had requests from companies that are kind of new to us or certainly new to, the list, possibly.

So, you. get those surveys filled out and back to Eric and. Yes. And hey, one more thing I wanted to go over before I kick this to you. Of course, we’ve been talking about agtech a lot in recent weeks, because we recently, of course, held our Tech Hub live event in Des Moines. And so Agtech is up to date for many people.

But one of the things that goes together with ag technology, of course, is connection and communication. And that usually means the internet. And I was actually I ran over the story. I was kind of surprised to read a little bit of that, it’s about the 2022 US Census data, and it mentioned that for agriculture, for farmers, 22% as of 2022 still don’t have access to the internet.

Well, yes, I was surprised that it was that high and that a little, a little less than a quarter of the farmers market is still internet free or has no internet access. and then they broke it down by states and, you know, most of the states that still lack internet access are in the south, and the state of Mississippi actually leads the country.

Maybe not the right word, but has the highest percentage of, growers who do not have access to the Internet. In 2017, 66% of Mississippi farmers had access to the Internet. And in 2022 that number has risen, but it is still only 73.3%. So, yes, I know, I’m surprised that in this day and age, unfortunately, there are people who don’t have internet access.

I’m sorry to read that. Yes, yes, actually, and it’s a good story item. I remember, and it was probably last year when we reported on this, you know, federal government efforts to fund broadband in the US and, you know, sort of, the numbers across the board, it would be a good follow up story.

I’ll dig into it a bit and see where that says. Yes, no, that would be good as a sequel. So, viewers, stay tuned. We will get back to you. So, hey, I think you said you had a few items to share as well, so I’ll turn this over to you, ma’am.

LS: Yes. Thank you. so this is new research. the, article itself, was by one of my favorites, Jennifer Marsden over at funder muse. this is recent research, by Stratovation Group. along with The Fertilizer Institute, Agricultural Retailers Association and explains that is, a lobby group, and it correlates with what, we’ve found, you know, as you know, we’ve had the Tech Hub Live that recently concluded that we had two workshops, drones as well as biological, in the row crops space.

And as we have so little, walked back with the attendees at the biological workshop and also the presenters, which were Dr. Andrea Arias of Jord Bioscience and Jacob Parnell of Biome Makers. a lot of good feedback. the workshop itself was well received, good content, good overall impression from both attendees and the presenters.

And, so, this study, from the Stratovation Group, finds that, according to its 2022 survey, 83% of US producers and farmers of row crops were aware of the term biological substances that, the awareness of biological substances in 24, 87% jumped. with awareness about specific subcategories such as bias stimulants and biofertilizers, grew 14%. So, just under half, 45% of U.S. road crop producers say they currently buy or use organic produce, up from 37% in the 2022 survey.

So, a couple of comments in this article that Jennifer Marston put together, one of the comments, about why we’re seeing the increase part is partly what, adding to that is that the traditional crop protection products, the chemicals, you know, that we’re talking about about, you know, they’re kind of like they know if it’s dicamba, glyphosate, etc.

You know, many challenges for those traditional, chemical products. That is, of course, a kind of awareness and use of biological substances. just one of the things and, again, this really correlates with what we discovered during the workshop, Tech Hub Live is that, really more education, continuing education around the use, the best practices of the application and of the high, how, when and where to get the best performance.

So, good to see awareness and usage growing. And I think that whatever we find, you know, as more data becomes available, more, again, pretty much for, kind of really for the best practices, so that when people invest and use it, that you know, the yield and their expectations , to what they, looking for as far as performance, they are able to achieve that.

ES: So, that was good and good news. Nice. Nice to see that, you know, the market and what we experienced with the workshop at Tech Hub Live, some nice, some nice, you know, nice smooth movement around the space that we kind of looked at. So. All good. Yes. No. And I know myself, I just attended, a few weeks ago.

Mosaic event in Illinois where they talked about their biological, of course, the companies involved in that space with their bioscience group and it was interesting. The speakers there had said something that I hadn’t heard until now. the fact that, you know, most of the organic products get hyped with crop protection products and, you know, the grower advisors say, you know, you know, this is a supplement to your crop protection product.

But the Mosaic peoples pointed out that, you know, biology, many of them are living organisms. And if you want a parallel in crop inputs, which is a living organism and you decide how to use it in your field, it would be the seed. So their suggestion was to treat organics more like seeds as opposed to a crop protection and a traditional crop protection product.

So. On the right. Like I said, I wrote a story about that. It’s in the newsletter and online at Croplife.com. So if you want to see what the people at mosaic had to say about organic products, check it out for yourself. Yes. Actually, and you know, we were comparing notes, this past week as well, because I had the great pleasure of visiting with the Mosaic Company earlier this year, down at their offices in Tampa, Florida.

LS: And Matt Sowder, who, you know, the head of their but bioscience division. He said that and I thought it was a really interesting way of looking at it, as he mentioned. So, you. indeed see Eric’s article on the newsletter about it. That’s good stuff. I like it. Good deal. Good then. Well, hey, I know, it’s summer, of course, after the end of summer.

ES: I know my, my son is getting ready to start school again. I am sure that many people prepare their children for back to school, many for them, annoyed, because they like to keep the summer time or delay, but nevertheless parents are happy. The children. The children will have to go somewhere for about 6 to 8 hours a day.

But anyway, one of the other things that will take place, of course, towards the end of August is the annual Midwest Ag Industries Exposition, The MAGIE Show in Bloomington, Illinois, and that will take place in the middle of next week. And I will be there along with the CropLife crew. we will make the rounds of the cattle market, in Bloomington.

And see what we can see in terms of new equipment and existing equipment, upgraded equipment. Ride and ride and lots of food. Of course, pork on a stick is always one of my favorites. I usually have about half a dozen of those myself, and I’m sure I’m not alone because they are very tasty. And again, because it’s a pork on a stick, you can walk around and eat it and it doesn’t tend to be very messy.

It is a little different from an ice cream cone, which can melt in the heat. So. But I will be at the MAGIE show. So in next week’s video I’ll have some highlights from the show, along with photos and hopefully video clips. And of course will announce who was the winner of the Showstopper award for 2024. So yes, I know there are all of us out there already companies sending me little tips, hey, our product is this and come and see it and we think it should win because of this reason.