Precision AgTech Buying Intentions Survey: How Ag Retailers Will Invest in Technology in 2023
According to the results the inaugural Precision AgTech Buying Intentions Survey — conducted by CropLife as part of its State of the Industry report — 2022 was something of a slow year for the segments that make up this part of the ag business.
Based upon the feedback from slightly more than 100 respondents, overall precision agtech expenditures during 2022 were flat for half the marketplace (50%). Luckily, for the other half of ag retailers, the market for precision agtech products and services was more up than down. According to the survey, 48% of respondents saw their expenditures in this area increase during last year’s growing season. Only 2% reported expenditure declines.
Interestingly, this matched up pretty well with the results of another survey CropLife magazine annually conducts — the CropLife 100. According to data from this survey, overall precision agtech revenues for 2022 were down only slightly from 2021, from $809 million to $796.2 million — a decline of less than 2%.
Newer = More Excitement
Of course, for the purposes of this first-ever Precision AgTech Buying Intentions Survey, we were most interested in finding out what product segments the nation’s largest ag retailers plan to spend their money on during the upcoming 2023 growing season. For the product mix, we listed both long established precision ag items such as yield monitors and newer/just coming into focus ones such as autonomous vehicles. Perhaps of no surprise, the newer segments can expect to see more ag retail dollars spent on them than the older ones during 2023 — with one notable exception.
Base = 101 | Source: CropLife 2023 Precision AgTech Buying Intentions Survey
For the survey, CropLife magazine asked respondents how much money they planned to spend on each of the product segments we were tracking. This included three options: Spending more than $1 million in 2023, spending between $100,001 and $999,999, and spending less than $100,000. For the most part, the highest percentages among these three spending ranges were in the less than $100,000 sector, with figures ranging from a high of 73% for drones to 41% for precision spraying systems.