About half of the approximately 600 agricultural products are also sold in markets for pesticides that are not grown for cultivation. This sector consists of 6 main segments: home and garden, lawn and ornamental plants, professional pest control, industrial vegetation control, vector and mosquito control and forestry. Other smaller segments are aquatic weed control, wood preservatives and rodenticides.
The non-crop pesticide market was valued at US$8.7 billion at the ex-manufacturer level in 2021, accounting for approximately 12% of the total global crop protection market. The upstream value of this market, which includes value added through formulation and packaging, marketing and application/service, is worth over $60 billion.
The global non-crop market has been growing at around 5% per year and is expected to continue growing, but it is both highly fragmented and complex. North America is the largest region with almost 50% of the total market, followed by Asia (25%) and Europe (17%).
Every industry has its own dynamics, value chain and drivers. All segments except Home & Garden are Business-to-Business (B2B) markets, while Home & Garden is a Business-to-Consumer (B2C) market. However, a common driver across all sectors is gross domestic product (GDP). Other drivers are increasing free time for gardening and growing concerns about pests and diseases, compounded by the recent COVID pandemic.
The non-crop market is highly competitive. All major crop protection companies based on research and development are represented in this market: Bayer, Syngenta, BASF, Corteva, FMC and Sumitomo. Many generic drug companies are also participating, and several have recently entered specialized non-crop companies or grown through acquisitions to gain access to the sector and drive higher sales of their products. Bayer has been a leader in some ways in the past, although as of this writing it is divesting a significant portion of its non-crop business.
For companies reporting profitability, the level is similar or higher than that of their crop protection business (e.g. Amvac, Syngenta). This is mainly due to lower sales and marketing costs for B2B markets and higher prices due to market segmentation.
A few other non-agricultural companies are also involved in specific sectors, notably SC Johnson and Scotts Miracle-Gro in home and garden, PBI Gordon in lawn and ornamental plants, and Rentokil Initial in professional pest control.
Many products originally developed for use in agriculture are subsequently registered for use in the non-crop sector. New active ingredients are not usually developed specifically for this sector. The exception is vector control, where IVCC has been specifically set up to allow the development of dedicated drugs.
There is a wide variety of formulations and packaging specifically designed for different sub-sectors, and the active ingredients can often represent only a very small proportion of the total cost of the final product. Such is the case with home and garden products, professional pest control services, and bed nets for mosquito and vector control.
Some older products have faced significant regulatory pressure and have been withdrawn from non-crop use. Chlorpyrifos is an example. Glyphosate is under particular legal pressure despite the product being one of the safest on the market.
Until now, it has been very difficult to quantify the size and composition of this market. Building on industry experience and primary data developed by S&P Global CropScience unit, our new report fills this knowledge gap and offers the first comprehensive quantitative assessment of the global non-crop pesticides market in more than 20 years.
Special features of the report are:
- A detailed breakdown by industry, country, product and company
- Company profiles for the top 15 companies, covering their range of products and the industries in which they operate
- Benchmarking of the non-crop market with the size of the CP market for each country, product and company
- Sales ranges for leading active ingredients (AIs) in each product class: herbicides, insecticides, fungicides and plant growth regulators (PGRs)
- Market estimates for 40 countries
- Analysis of the value chain from the delivered technical material to the value of the final product/service offer
- Analysis of the drivers of market growth
- Forecasts by region and industry through 2026
Download free sample data from the report here.
Posted on October 17, 2022 by Alan BullionDirector of Special Reports and Projects, Agribusiness, S&P Global Commodity Insights
and
Jonathan SchohamSenior Consultant Analyst, Agribusiness, S&P Global Commodity Insights
This article is published by S&P Global Commodity Insights and not by S&P Global Ratings, a separately managed division of S&P Global.
