Coronavirus Impact on Ag Retail to Date
April 29, 2020 Without a doubt, the biggest story of 2020 is the coronavirus pandemic. For the overall economy across much of the globe, the spread of this highly contagious virus to three million people has disrupted daily life, shut down multiple businesses, and made “social distancing” the new catchphrase for society.
But for ag retailers and their grower-customers, the COVID-19 outbreak hasn’t really interrupted business. In fact, most ag retailers I’ve spoken with over the past month have essentially echoed the comments from John Oster of The Morral Companies, Morral, OH (which I wrote about in March): “Vendor supply, so far, is not an issue,” said Oster. “[We had a] minor hiccup on truck arrangement, but for now, we have no major issues.”
One month later, other ag retailers located in states such as Illinois, Iowa, and California also say this is the case. “Despite the COVID imposed conditions, we are having a very good spring,” said these individuals.
Related:
- Coronavirus and the Ag Supply Chain: Updates from Leading Companies in ‘Essential’ Agriculture
- COVID-19: How Ag Retailers Are Stepping Up to Help Customers, Employees Amid the Coronavirus Crisis
And this attitude towards the coronavirus pandemic and agriculture seems to be the norm. According to some preliminary data from our annual CropLife 100 Mid-Year Survey, 43% of respondents says that COVID-19’s impact on their businesses thus far “is what we expected,” with another 28% describing the situation as “better than expected.” Only 29% of CropLife 100 ag retailers say coronavirus’ affect on their bottom lines is “worse than expected.”
Loading ...When it comes to crop inputs and services, most survey respondents indicate demand has picked up for a pair of items – fertilizer and crop protection products. In terms of fertilizer demand, 57% of CropLife 100 ag retailers say this has been “better than expected” so far during 2020. Meanwhile, 21% say that demand for crop protection products has improved for their operations. In both these cases, survey respondents have hinted at grower-customers looking to plant crops as quickly as possible and recover prevent plant acres from 2019 could be the reason for these demand increases.
Of course, that doesn’t mean coronavirus won’t have some kind of negative impact on ag retailers and their grower-customers as 2020 moves forward. When asked how they viewed COVID-19’s impact on the rest of the year, 50% said that they were “somewhat concerned” revenue would be affected come fall. Another 36% said that they were “very concerned” regarding finances if the COVID-19 pandemic continued throughout the year. The remaining 14% “weren’t concerned.”
As always, these are just some preliminary numbers from the early returns. Look for the complete survey report in the June 2020 edition of CropLife magazine.
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