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Rabo Research sees Ecommerce growth for ag inputs

The Rabobank research team for Food and Agribusiness sees small but accelerated growth in Ecommerce for ag inputs.

Rabo’s Sam Taylor, speaking on a farm input supply chain webinar, says buying inputs online has become more relevant in the age of COVID.

He says the most advanced platform in North America is Nutrien with its legacy Agrium retail channels.

“The pesticides, the seeds, the fertilizers. The farmer purchases online at the moment are kind of somewhere between the one to five-percent.”

Taylor says Rabo sees change coming and a shift in power, “Where you’re shifting possibly less from the product producer as the power center, more to that retail position.”

With Ecommerce, he says, comes more transparency and the Farmer Business Network is an example of that, “To actually pass on those supply chain efficiencies in lower input pricing.” Taylor says they expect to see more consolidation of smaller co-ops and local and regional distributors because scale is needed to achieve Ecommerce virtues and advantages.