Talent Attrition in the Agribusiness Sector

Agribusiness is undergoing structural transformation driven by consolidation, digital disruption, and evolving customer expectations. In their June 2025 Report, Capstone Partners note a 19% uptick in deal volume for AgTech M&A activity, building on momentum in late 2024 as lower interest rate reinvigorate buyers looking for mergers and acquisitions to support strategic repositioning, with a focus on digital innovation, operational efficiency and sustainable agricultural practices

Key deals:

2025: Bunge completed its $8.2 billion merger with commodity trading rival Viterra. This mega-merger creates one of the world’s largest agricultural trading companies, comparable in scale to major rivals Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland (ADM). It significantly boosts Bunge’s capacity in grain storage and oilseed processing globally.

Envu acquired several Actellic insecticide products from Syngenta in April 2025. This expands Envu’s portfolio for stored grain protection.

2024: In a major consolidation among farmer-owned cooperatives, Ceres Solutions Cooperative and Co-Alliance Cooperative merged on March 1, 2024, to form Keystone Cooperative. This new entity is a large cooperative serving farmers in Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, and Illinois.

Koch Ag & Energy Solutions acquired OCI Global’s Iowa fertilizer plant for $3.6 billion, enhancing nitrogen fertilizer capacity. Performance Food Group expanded its distribution network by purchasing food distributor Cheney Bros. for $2.1 billion. Cal-Maine Foods, the largest U.S. egg producer, acquired ISE America’s egg production assets for $111.8 million. UPL announced the acquisition of Corteva’s global mancozeb fungicide business, and in Brazil, Cargill’s animal nutrition business merged with Fermento.

In their June 2025 report, ETC Group and Grain noted the corporate concentration across agribusiness, and four sectors – seeds, pesticides, agricultural machinery and animal pharmaceuticals– now meet the definition of an oligopoly, in which four companies control more than 40% of a market, leading Monica Vargas Collazos, Researcher at Grain to state ‘The industrial food system is not just broken, it’s rigged’.

For senior commercial leaders, these changes, coupled with market conditions, have fundamentally altered what success looks like and how it’s achieved.

As a result, many high-performing sales and commercial executives are exiting the sector or pivoting to adjacent industries that offer clearer strategic impact, more agile cultures, and better long-term prospects.

What are the key drivers behind this trend?

Strategic Autonomy Erosion Due to Industry Consolidation

The Consolidation across the ag value chain (inputs, equipment, distribution, and data services) has centralised strategic control in global or national headquarters.

Decision-making is increasingly corporate-led, with regional and commercial leaders having less latitude to tailor strategies to local markets.

Impact on Senior Talent:

• Reduced autonomy: Leaders accustomed to entrepreneurial, relationship-driven business models now operate under rigid frameworks and global mandates.
• Strategy execution fatigue: The role shifts from “designing strategy” to “implementing policy,” eroding engagement and job satisfaction.
• Disconnect with customers: Centralised pricing, channel strategies, and product launches often miss regional nuance, leaving commercial leaders accountable for results they can’t influence.

Margin Pressure and Unstable Market Economics

Commodity price swings, rising input costs, and volatile weather conditions make revenue predictability difficult.

Downstream customers (farmers, retailers, cooperatives) are under financial pressure, reducing discretionary spending and increasing price sensitivity.

Impact on Senior Talent:

• Short-term focus: Leadership attention shifts to quarterly performance firefighting rather than long-term growth.
• Incentive misalignment: Commercial leaders face aggressive targets disconnected from market realities.
• Emotional fatigue: Constant restructuring, cost-cutting, and pricing battles create a “survival mode” environment rather than one of strategic growth.

Cultural Lag and Organisational Inertia

Many agribusinesses maintain traditional hierarchies, legacy systems, and conservative approaches to change.

Transformation initiatives (digital sales, CRM integration, customer analytics) are often underfunded or siloed.

Impact on Senior Talent:

• Frustration with pace of change: Leaders with a growth mindset find themselves bogged down in internal resistance and slow approvals.
• Limited innovation runway: Attempts to modernise commercial models (e.g., value-based pricing, digital channels, customer segmentation) are often deprioritised.
• Generational tension: Senior commercial managers are expected to lead digital transformation without the organizational agility or resources to succeed.

Digital Disruption and Shifting Customer Dynamics

The rise of digital platforms, online marketplaces, and precision-ag data tools has disrupted traditional route-to-market structures.

Farmers and agriculture retailers increasingly make decisions based on data, transparency, and ROI analytics rather than personal relationships.

Impact on Senior Talent:

• Identity shift: Traditional relational leadership models lose relevance in a world driven by analytics, automation, and e-commerce.
• Capability gap: Many organisations lack the digital infrastructure or commercial analytics to empower leaders with actionable insights.
• Pressure to reskill teams: Senior managers must simultaneously deliver results and upskill entire salesforces for data-driven selling – often without adequate support.

Talent Market Competition and Value Perception

Senior agribusiness leaders possess highly transferable skills – strategic sales management, channel development, and P&L responsibility – that are in demand across other sectors (biotech, renewables, food tech, SaaS, logistics).

Competing industries often provide clearer career trajectories, more competitive compensation, and modern work environments.

Impact on Senior Talent:

• Attractive exits: Experienced leaders are being recruited into adjacent industries offering strategic influence and cultural dynamism.
• Perception gap: Agribusiness is often seen as slower-moving, less innovative, and less digitally mature.
• Retention challenge: Compensation and recognition models in many agribusinesses don’t reflect the complexity or impact of senior commercial leadership today.

Strategic Misalignment Between Leadership and the Field

Corporate strategies often prioritise global brand narratives, sustainability goals, and digital transformation, while local markets remain relationship-driven and resource-constrained.

Impact on Senior Talent:

• Tension between vision and reality: Leaders find themselves “translating” unrealistic global strategies into viable regional plans.
• Limited influence upward: Strategic insights from field leaders are often ignored or diluted in the global hierarchy.
• Disconnection from purpose: Many senior leaders entered agribusiness to make an impact on farmers and communities; today, that mission is obscured by corporate bureaucracy.

Leadership Fatigue and Changing Motivations

The demands of modern commercial leadership, managing transformation, digitisation, and market volatility have expanded dramatically without corresponding empowerment or reward.

Meanwhile, generational shifts in leadership values are emerging: purpose, flexibility, and innovation now outweigh job security and title prestige.

Impact on Senior Talent:

• Exhaustion: Managing multiple transformations simultaneously (digital, structural, cultural) without alignment or resources leads to burnout.
• Disillusionment: The role becomes reactive and transactional, rather than strategic and visionary.
• Redirection: Senior leaders increasingly seek opportunities where they can build, innovate, and influence, rather than maintain or defend legacy systems.

Conclusion

Dominic Oldfield, Partner, Agribusiness:

‘Agribusiness is at a crossroads: the industry’s most experienced commercial leaders are leaving just as market complexity, digital disruption, and sustainability transitions demand stronger leadership than ever.

Organisations can both improve retention and also attract high calibre candidates by reframing commercial leaders as strategic partners in growth, tying performance to metrics that show tangible influence – market share growth, customer retention, digital adoption – not just volume or margin, and incentivising accordingly.

Senior leaders need to be upskilled and enabled for the changing landscape – shifting the focus from sales management to commercial strategy and innovation based on data driven decision making, customer segmentation and AI-enabled forecasting.

Finally, organisations should focus on culture, reinforcing contemporary purpose. Linking commercial goals to farmer outcomes, sustainability achievements or community impact and humanising strategy increases engagement by emphasising the impact and legacy of the work they do.’