Farm Supplies Wholesalers NAICS 424910

Jul 23, 2025 - Pesticides Under Fire

• 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 trade association for the US commercial fertilizer industry, The Fertilizer Institute, 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.

• The widening spread between input prices paid by farmers and what they receive for their outputs in the form of lower commodity prices is squeezing farm profits, according to Farm Progress. Current farm income instability due to inflationary pressures, high interest rates, and several supply chain disruptions have farmers facing higher input costs while receiving lower commodity prices. Moreover, as commodity prices have fallen the gap between the two widened in 2023 and 2024. The percentage change in crop output prices between 2023 and 2024 (-13.8%) is much larger than the percentage decrease in input prices (-1.38%) during that period, USDA data show. Without any relief in the form of improved crop prices, farmers will continue to suffer from cost/price squeezes, eroding farm profit margins and reducing their purchasing power, according to Farm Progress.
• Employment by farm supplies wholesalers remained flat in April compared to a year ago, according to the latest US Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Employment by the industry is seasonal, typically peaking in the summer months and declining in the fall as farm activity slows. Meanwhile, the average wage at farm supplies wholesalers rose 2.7% over the same period to $30.27 per hour, not far off its peak in June 2024, BLS data shows. Inventories for miscellaneous nondurable goods wholesalers, which includes farm supplies, increased 2% year over year in February and were up 1.8% from January. Farm supply inventories typically peak in the first quarter as distributors stock up in anticipation of the spring planting season.