At the 2025 Illinois Fertilizer & Chemical Association ( IFCA ) annual meeting a few weeks earlier in January, Brian Lutz, Vice President, Agricultural Solutions, made a point.
” I’m certain you are all experiencing a lot oƒ excitement about ÅI and how iƫ wįll affect various aspȩcts σf our lives and iȵdustries,” Lutz said. You can see AI in action without looking too much. Truly, we are all surrounded by AI.
The data, of course, suggests that AI is still a bit failing in agriculture. Only 28 % of ag retailers who were polled in the fall of 2024 participated in CropLife magazine’s ag technology survey, which found that only 20 % of them planned to purchase AI-based systems for their operations in 2025. In terms of planned purchase percentages ( 30 % ) and 29 %, respectively ), this lags behind other ag tech industries like drones and software systems.
Similar proportions of AI systems were found in a more current study. In the 11th annual CropLife Ag Retailer Buying Intentions Survey, 30 % of respondents anticipate spending more money on AI systems this year ( between 1 % and 1 %, compared to their spending goals for 2024 ). In 2025, 22 % of people anticipate spending less on AI materials. The rest 48 % intend to spend the same amount on new AI systems as they did during the growing season of 2024.
