Nutrien: Big Company, Big Plans
The agricultural giant has laid out how it will aid the industry in its quest to be more efficient and sustainable, this year and beyond.
As agriculture companies go, they don’t get much bigger and more diversified in scope than Nutrien Ltd., writes Editor Eric Sfiligoj at CropLife. From its headquarters in Saskatoon, SK, CAN, the company — formed from the merger of Potash Corp. and Saskatchewan and Agrium back in 2018 — oversees a vast network of more than 26,000 employees across the globe with operations in mining, crop nutrient and seed supply, and ag retail. Overall, Nutrien is the world’s No. 1 producer of potash, the No. 3 producer of nitrogen-based fertilizers, and the No. 1 ag retailer with outlets in more than 50 countries and annual sales of $29 billion.
Given this level of “bigness,” Rob Clayton, Senior Vice President, North America for Nutrien Ag Solutions, says it is only natural for the company to “plan big” as well. “There’s no point in being big if you can’t do big things,” says Clayton.
For Nutrien Ag Solutions, this has meant branching out across several different growth initiatives. This has included manufacturing proprietary products through the company’s own Loveland Products label, providing sustainable solutions to customers, and expanding into the areas of financial services and digital offerings.
A Focus on Retail
According to Clayton, the road to ag retail prominence for Nutrien goes back to the 1990s. At that time, the company’s ag retail outlets conducted business under a pair of names — Western Farm Service in the Western portion of the U.S. and Crop Production Services across the rest of the country, each sporting a few hundred locations.
During the early years of the 21st century, Nutrien steadily increased its ag retail footprint across North America. In 2006, the company purchased Royster-Clark. In 2008, United Agri Products (then the No. 2 ag retail in the U.S. by size) was added to the mix. In 2010, the Agriliance outlets joined the Nutrien family. Finally, in 2013, Nutrien acquired Viterra. According to Clayton, there are other smaller acquisitions made as well along the way.
“Today, we operate almost 1,500 retail selling locations across North America,” he says. “We offer a complete range of seed, liquid and dry fertilizer, crop protection, specialty nutrition products, and biologicals, as well as related services and solutions.” This has ranked the company as the No. 1 operations on the annual CropLife 100 list of the nation’s largest ag retailers, with sales well in excess of $1 billion.
Read more at CropLife.
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