Agricultural Chemical Manufacturers NAICS 3253

Jul 18, 2025 - MAHA Report Criticized

• The agrichemical industry is pushing back against a government report linking pesticide overuse to children’s health issues, Investigate Midwest reports. In May, the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Commission, chaired by HHS Secretary RFK Jr., published a report on declining childhood health metrics that implicated the more than 1 billion pounds of pesticides used annually on US crops as a leading cause of children’s declining health. The report stated that pesticides are commonly found in the bloodstream of America’s children — “some at alarming levels.” Farmers joined agrichemical makers in blasting the report, with the American Farm Bureau Federation and several agrichemical groups saying any effort to reduce pesticide use would decrease food production and harm farm income. Pesticide manufacturers are in a position to push back on the MAHA report, especially after years of increased spending on federal lobbyists and political donations, according to Investigate Midwest.
• The Fertilizer Institute (TFI) is urging the Trump administration to provide a strategic carveout for Canadian fertilizers – including designating potash and phosphate as critical minerals – to exempt them from import tariffs. Trump imposed 25% duties on most Canadian products on March 4th before announcing a one-month reprieve on some goods, including fertilizers, two days later. The US imported nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium fertilizer products valued at more than $10 billion, more than half of which came from Canada, in 2023. Canada supplies 85% of the potash fertilizer and nearly 10% of their nitrogen fertilizer used by US growers, according to TFI. Potash prices have already risen nearly 20% this year ahead of US tariffs and phosphate prices are poised to surge more on retaliatory Canadian tariffs, Reuters reports. Higher prices for fertilizer – most farmers’ biggest input cost – would likely be passed along to growers.

• Facing tighter budgets, US farmers are trading down to generic chemicals to treat their crops, in a blow to the big agricultural chemical manufacturers, Reuters reports. Falling crop prices and rising input costs are causing US farmers to cut back on their spring planting budgets, sending shocks throughout the US agriculture sector, including companies that make pesticides and fungicides. “It’s like if you grew up eating Fruity Pebbles and now you go to Dollar General and get Fruity Bites,” Illinois grain grower Jeff O’Connor told Reuters. The pullback in spending is impacting ag chemicals companies including Bayer, Syngenta, Corteva, which are also facing increasing generic competition. The expiration of over two dozen active ingredient patents in recent years is driving a boom in off-patent use, with which now accounts for about 80% of the agrichemical market share, Rabobank agricultural analysts told Reuters.
• Producer prices for pesticide, fertilizer, and other agricultural chemical manufacturers rose 4.1% in May compared to a year ago, after falling 7.1% in the previous May-versus-May annual comparison, according to the latest US Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Industry producer prices have fallen sharply from their highs in 2022, when Russia’s war in Ukraine triggered global disruptions in the fertilizer market. Employment by makers of agricultural chemicals grew 2.1% year over year in April, while the average industry wage increased 2.3% YoY in May to $31.36 per hour, BLS data show.