It’s like making lemonade from lemons. This time last year, a wave of crop protection allocations were announced due to supply chain disruptions and limited quantities. Across the crop protection industry, more than 350 products were managed through allocated volumes in 2022.
The tightness in supply persists. Retailers say 2023 will bring another round of challenges. So what can the industry apply from recent past experience? It can be boiled down into two categories: product stewardship and elevated business operations.
Put Resistance on Its Heels
Although volumes were tight across all product categories, fungicides and herbicides rose to the top of the list of concern. Specific to herbicide products, many—if not all—retailers were put on allocated supplies of glufosinate and glyphosate.
This led to shifting those volumes away from burndown applications and strategically placing products where and when they were needed the most.
“2022 was a challenging year to supply all of our customers with the products they needed to keep fields clean,” says Harlan Asmus, co-owner of Asmus Farm Supply.
This balance of supply and demand was difficult but created a silver lining: Tank mixes farmers hadn’t used widely or recently, which resulted in a learning curve but also brought strong weed control results and strengthened farmers’ approaches to weed resistance.
“We have several success stories of how farmers applied products differently,” says Mark Foster, marketing manager for corn and soybean products in the Midwest for AMVAC. “Generally, this meant they used more or different modes of action at different times and in different combinations to achieve desired weed control.”
The above trifecta is a tool in the toolbox to extend the efficacy for herbicides and fight resistance.
More than 90% of waterhemp populations collected in Iowa fields in 2019 were multiple-resistant to three herbicide groups—HGs 2, 5 and 9—reports Iowa State Extension. Nearly 30% of populations had stacked resistance to five herbicide groups—HGs, 2, 5, 9, 14 and 27. Also, giant ragweed and horseweed or marestail are major glyphosate-resistant weeds in Iowa crops.
Diversifying herbicide programs is the easiest and most important step to manage herbicide resistance.
Foster is encouraged by the level of weed control farmers saw with products outside of their regular go-to tank mixes. Additionally, he says, the product performance in 2022 will encourage farmers to consider the products in 2023 as the supply chain struggles are likely to continue.
Active ingredient availability is more stable now versus six months ago, says Dan Beran, director of agricultural technical services at Nufarm. He adds that challenges persist—inert supply and rising costs—but the industry is more equipped today to manage the variables.
Work With What You Have
One common mantra in this current market is “you can’t sell what you don’t have.” Retailers have made strides in inventory management and specifically digitizing their procurement and sales processes.
Culley Medley, vice president of operations at River Valley Cooperative, says the co-op’s team learned at least two lessons: manage supply and manage expectations.
At River Valley Cooperative, the team is moving into its third year of using an AgVend portal for sales and the second year of documenting every sale through the platform. This has helped have real-time visibility as well as stay uniform and up to date on price changes. Some retailers report up to six different price changes during the December through March prepay period in 2022.
“We stayed committed to being transparent with our selling. We had conversations up front with producers not just about when product would arrive but also why we were having these ongoing challenges,” Medley says. “It was better to share information up front. And we said, ‘We’ll have enough chemical to kill your weeds. It just might not be the first product we planned.’”
Another silver lining: customers and advisers forged closer working relationships.
“This type of season with shortages highlights the value of the agronomy department and the agronomist-customer relationship,” Asmus says. “When we can work with great constraints and still deliver a positive outcome, it shows our strength.”
In recent years, Asmus says the time spent with growers making product plans has doubled.
“In the past, we could get what we ordered in the crop protection industry,” he says. “This past year, I made the decision to not sell anything we did not physically have.”
Asmus also uses AgVend, which is the tool that can set up volumes per storefront based on the manufacturer allocation. Internally, the sales team could see quantities of product available.
Both Asmus and Medley report irreplaceable value in the ability to view real-time inventory and manage their inventory accordingly, especially as the inventory is harder to secure. It’s now part of how they do business.
“The current supply chain is like Groundhog Day. You just wait for something to pop up because you know something is coming,” Medley says. “The supply chain side is out of our control. We are balancing the risk of holding inventory and managing our relationship with the farmer. Those are the two things we can control.”
