Agricultural Chemical Manufacturing

Agricultural Chemical Manufacturing

Brief Excerpt from Industry Overview Chapter:

Companies in this industry manufacture fertilizers and pesticides. Major companies include BASF and Bayer (Germany), Corteva Agriscience (US), Nutrien (Canada), Sumitomo Chemical (Japan), Syngenta (Switzerland), and Yara (Norway). Many smaller companies are involved in mixing purchased raw materials to produce customized fertilizer compounds with special characteristics.

COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE

Demand for agricultural chemicals relies mainly on demand for various crops, which in turn depends on crop prices. The profitability of individual companies is linked to efficient operations and marketing. Big producers have large economies of scale in production. Smaller companies can compete effectively by making specialty chemicals or fertilizer mixtures for local markets. The US industry can be considered as highly concentrated with the 50 largest companies accounting for about 80% of the industry's revenue.

PRODUCTS, OPERATIONS & TECHNOLOGY

Major products include agricultural and commercial pesticides, which account for about 45% of the industry revenue followed by synthetic ammonia, nitric acid, and ammonium compounds at more than 10%. Other products include phosphoric acid (5%).