Has E-commerce In Agriculture Flatlined?

For the fourth year, Farm Journal conducted a study focused on online crop input purchasing. This year’s email-based study was conducted from mid-September to mid-October. It collected a total of 849 qualifying responses.

In writing this year’s summary, I looked back at the headlines of the previous years’ reports: 2018: “Farmers Weigh E-Commerce Options,” 2019: “More Farmers Go Online For Crop Inputs,” 2020: “Farmers Buying Online Nearly Doubles.” 

Notice the trajectory — exploration, getting a bit of a toehold, trend solidifies with large growth. 

And then you have 2021. 

We are nearly two years into a global pandemic that is casting a very long and heavy shadow onto our supply chain and economy. 

When you look at how farmers responded to our survey questions, one big takeaway jumped out: for the first time, a lower percentage of farmers say they will buy any amount of their crop inputs online for the coming crop year. The concerns over inventories and deliveries of critical inputs for farmers could be steering them away from electronic ways of procuring those supplies. 

This is where the trusted adviser shines — being the person farmers can turn to in uncertain times. 

To also gain some insight into how farmers are perceiving what it means to buy online, we asked them to define it for us. Check out those results. If any retailer was doubting the value in how they’ve invested in communicating with farmers online—you will be reassured that was money well spent. 

Every year the study asked farmers who don't currently buy any inputs online why they don't, and in 2021, the choice with the biggest jump up was “don’t trust delivery/timeliness of online purchases.” Every year, “satisfied with current input provider” was the top choice, but this year’s percentage was the lowest ever. 

Every year, we have updated the questions and fields to reflect this changing sector of the industry. And in 2021, we asked respondents for the first time to help us define what buying online meant to them.

This year’s study had respondents fill in the percent of an input category they bought or plan to buy in the coming year online rather than choose 
a range. 

Every year, Farm Journal has asked farmers about their buying intentions for the coming year, and farmers have overstated their plans to buy online. In other words, each year, a greater share of farmers say they intend to buy online for the next year than the share who later report they did buy online. Notably, for 2022, a lower percentage of farmers say they will buy some inputs online for the 2022 crop.