Insecticide Segment Battles Supply Chain, Chlorpyrifos Loss
Pests come in unexpected forms, writes Jackie Pucci at CropLife. Insecticides are not excluded from supply chain troubles that have challenged herbicides and so many other categories and industries worldwide.
“We’re in new territory,” says Ryan Riddle, Atticus Business Unit Lead, South. Channel inventories are at all-time lows, growers are scrambling to get orders in extra early and product locked in the barn, while line times to get product formulated have been booked solid for 12 to 18 months in advance.
“Growers and retailers are putting in the early work, but there is nothing that can totally solve the supply obstacles that continue to emerge,” he says, adding, “If (your product) is sitting in a port and you’ve got line space and a formulator that’s been booked for nine months but the technical is not there, it causes mass chaos in production However, when growers and retailers actively engage, plan and act decisively, that creates more predictability and gives Atticus our best shot at better managing supply and production to meet the agronomic needs of growers.”
According to a source who wishes to remain unnamed, raw and inert ingredient shortages won’t hit every insecticide. Bifenthrin and lambda are among those that will likely be affected. The source said that because bifenthrin requires less acid than lambda-cyhalothrin, it will be the more widely available of the two in 2022. And while other insecticides may be more readily available, prices are expected to be up.
Drake Copeland, Technical Service Manager at FMC, says his company is well positioned to meet demand — but then comes the tricky part. If other major manufacturers are struggling, it will impact everyone at some point.
“It’s potentially not just one manufacturer’s problem — if they don’t have supply, end users are going to look elsewhere,” Copeland tells CropLife®. “We feel good about our situation. We may get business we haven’t had in the past because growers and retailers might need to find alternative options due to the prospects of others not being able to supply the market. It’s the unknown.”
Copeland describes his shock at some of the supply issues he witnessed over the past year — such as missing simple components, like caps or cardboard, preventing product from being delivered.
“This is not a panic statement,” Riddle says, “but there could be growers out there who don’t get the chemistry they want this year. I’m not saying that there’s not another solution that exists in that space that they can use, but they may not be able to get exactly what they want or in the quantity they want.”
On top of the supply chain issue, the industry is also navigating the loss of chlorpyrifos — but in this case, it was not unexpected.
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