Herbicides, fungicides, insecticides, and growth regulators for UK arable farms. Spring crop protection purchasing accounts for a significant proportion of variable costs on arable operations. Pool purchasing aggregates volume to access contracted distributor pricing unavailable to individual farm accounts.
Agrochemical spend on a 500-hectare arable unit can easily exceed £150,000 in a season. The purchasing model is typically a mix of farm merchant account and direct supplier relationships — some forward contracted, much bought in-season at distributor list prices adjusted by account terms negotiated years ago and rarely revisited.
The agrochemical distribution market has significant margin layers — manufacturer to distributor to merchant to farm. At each layer, contracted volume relationships command better pricing than transactional accounts. Farms aggregating their crop protection spend into a collective tender consistently find 12–20% savings against what they were paying individually — achieved not by switching products but by accessing a better position in the same distribution chain.
Herbicides (pre and post-emergence), fungicides (all crop types), insecticides, growth regulators, adjuvants, and soil improvers. Each farm's programme is specified individually against their intended crop rotation and agronomist recommendations. The pool tender goes to contracted distributors on an aggregated basis — individual farm programmes are maintained, just at pool pricing.
IQ works with farms to ensure the specification is product-specific where brand loyalty matters agronomically, and generically specified where equivalent alternatives are genuinely acceptable. We do not encourage unnecessary switching of products that work — we create competitive pressure on pricing for the same products.