NAICS 3253Industry group · 4-digitnational market1 market record

Pesticide, fertilizer and other agricultural chemical manufacturing

This industry group comprises establishments primarily engaged in manufacturing agricultural chemicals, including nitrogenous and phosphoric fertilizer materials; mixed fertilizers; and agricultural and household pest control chemicals. — Statistics Canada, NAICS 2022A

Establishments · CanadaA: 234
Under 10 employeesA: 44%
Establishments · USA: 1,049
Employment · USA: 34,478
Payroll · USA: $3.2B

Size and shape

How many businesses there are and how small they are. Fragmentation is the first thing an entrant — or anyone selling software into this industry — needs to know, and it is one of the few things that is actually measured.

Canadian establishments by number of employeesA

1–45423%

5–95021%

10–196126%

20–494921%

50–99115%

100–19963%

200–49910%

500+21%

Of 234 Canadian establishments with employees, 44% have fewer than ten — weighted toward mid-sized establishments.

Where they areA

Quebec5925%

Ontario4720%

British Columbia3716%

Alberta3615%

Largest four provinces by establishment count. Establishments with employees only — sole operators with no payroll are not in this table, so in trades and personal services the true number of businesses is higher.

How many new establishments are still tradingA

Manufacturing, US · opened 2020

86.2%

1 year

70.8%

3 years

58.4%

5 years

45.3%

10 years

opened 2015

Measured, not forecast: the share of US establishments opening in one year that were still active later. It counts good operators and bad ones together, which is exactly why it is the honest answer to “what are the odds”. It is for the whole sector rather than this market, and the ten-year figure comes from an older cohort because no younger one has reached ten years.

How businesses here compete

The structural profile of subsector 325, which every industry beneath it inherits. This is analyst judgment from how the subsector is organised — not research into this industry, and not a measurement.

national competitionhigh capitalUNVERIFIEDinherited from 325 Chemical manufacturing

Basic chemicals need plant-scale capital. Formulated products — cleaners, coatings, cosmetics — are reachable through contract manufacture, which moves the problem to distribution.

Who sets the price: Commodity markets for basic chemicals; brands and retailers for formulated goods.
The software it runs on: Process ERP, formulation, safety-data and regulatory compliance.

Market screens and studies

Market-entry records filed along this branch of the hierarchy. A record at or beneath this code is about this industry; one above it is about something wider that contains it.

Operating businessScreened

Crop-Protection & Fertilizer FormulatorStructure decides

binding constraint: entry cost + regulatory drag

Nitrogen and phosphate synthesis is world-scale plant and was never the question. The reachable end of this group is formulation: buy technical-grade active ingredient or fertilizer materials, blend, package and sell under a label. The Canadian shape says people do exactly that — of 234 establishments, 71% have fewer than twenty employees [A]. The cut is that in this industry the label is the asset, and the label is a registration. No pest control product can be sold in Canada without a Pest Management Regulatory Agency registration, product by product and use by use, and the data package behind it is sunk before the first litre ships; fertilizers and supplements answer to the CFIA under the Fertilizers Act. American Vanguard — a listed formulator and registrant of exactly this kind — shows what holding them costs: $11.3M of registration expense in 2025 on $515.1M of net sales, which fell 6%, for a net loss of $49.9M after a $126.3M loss in 2024 [A]. Its own filing names the second problem: generic competitors buy their way onto the same data through compensation offers, source from India and China, and run on thinner margins. So the entrant pays the regulatory toll in full and still does not own a moat once it is through the gate. Blending plain fertilizer avoids most of the registration burden, but that is a farm-retail business tied to the big distributors' networks and was not screened here. The software sold to this branch is screened separately.

NAICS 32536 vendors named11 sourced figuresOpen →

Software serving this industry

The vertical software markets filed along the same branch — who sells to these businesses and who they would have to displace — and then the generic categories every business buys whatever it does.

No vertical software market has been recorded along this branch. What the subsector typically runs on: Process ERP, formulation, safety-data and regulatory compliance.

Catalogued categories — named, not analysed

Discrete manufacturing ERP SaaS 31-33

And what every business buys · 25 generic categories

Sold to every industry rather than this one, so they are filed against the software industry's own code. The same few vendors recur across most of them.

Companies in this industry · 7

Every company this research names that is filed here or beneath — the operators, and the vendors that sell to them — largest disclosed revenue first. The rank is within the company’s own six-digit industry.

Company	Filed under	Revenue	Rank
FMCNYSE:FMC	Pesticide, fertilizer and other agricultural chemical manufacturing3253	$3.5B	1/7
American VanguardNYSE:AVD	Pesticide, fertilizer and other agricultural chemical manufacturing3253	$515M	2/7
AdamaPrivate	Pesticide, fertilizer and other agricultural chemical manufacturing3253	—	3/7
BASFPrivate	Pesticide, fertilizer and other agricultural chemical manufacturing3253	—	4/7
Bayer Crop SciencePrivate	Pesticide, fertilizer and other agricultural chemical manufacturing3253	—	5/7
SyngentaDelisted	Pesticide, fertilizer and other agricultural chemical manufacturing3253	—	6/7
UPL and the generic formulatorsPrivate	Pesticide, fertilizer and other agricultural chemical manufacturing3253	—	7/7

Who works here

The occupations employed in Manufacturing, most concentrated in it first. The share is measured against the whole sector, not this industry — the published cross-tabulation stops there.

Concentrated in this sectorA

Aircraft assemblers and aircraft assembly inspectors One industry 91.3%

Supervisors, assembly and fabrication One industry 88.3%

Machine operators and related workers in pulp and paper production and wood processing and manufacturing One industry 86.1%

Managers in manufacturing and utilities One industry 84.4%

Machine operators and related workers in chemical, plastic and rubber processing One industry 82.7%

Mechanical, electrical and electronics assemblers and inspectors One industry 82.3%

Machine operators and related workers in food, beverage and associated products processing One industry 79.1%

Machine operators and related workers in mineral and metal products processing and manufacturing One industry 77.7%

Furniture, wood, plastic and other products assemblers, finishers and inspectors One industry 73.9%

Machine operators and related workers in textile, fabric, fur and leather products processing and manufacturing One industry 70.8%

These jobs are mostly done here. An operator in this industry is competing for them against others in the same industry, not against the whole economy.

And the jobs every business has

Other technical trades Across the economy 20%

Technical occupations in electronics and electrical engineering Across the economy 16.3%

Shoe repairers, shoemakers and upholsterers Across the economy 15.2%

Administrative and financial supervisors Across the economy 11.6%

Technical inspectors and regulatory officers Across the economy 10.7%

Administrative services managers Across the economy 9.6%

Legislative and senior managers Across the economy 9.2%

Building maintenance installers, servicers and repairers Across the economy 8.3%

Financial, insurance and related administrative support workers Across the economy 7.7%

Technical occupations in computer and information systems Across the economy 4.8%

Found across at least fourteen of the twenty sectors. In a small establishment several of these are usually one person, or an outside provider.

All 162 occupations →

Inside this industry

2 rows sit directly beneath 3253, and 5 in all once every level is counted. Each has a base report of its own.

Code	Industry	Establishments · CA	What is known
32531	Fertilizer manufacturing	208	screened at 3253
32532	Pesticide and other agricultural chemical manufacturing	26	screened at 3253

Alongside it, under 325 Chemical manufacturing

Code	Industry	Establishments · CA	What is known
3251	Basic chemical manufacturing	322	Basic Chemical Plant
3252	Resin, synthetic rubber, and artificial and synthetic fibres and filaments manufacturing	102	Resin & Synthetic Fibre Plant
3254	Pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturing	428	Life Sciences Commercial Software
3255	Paint, coating and adhesive manufacturing	263	Regional Paint & Coatings Maker
3256	Soap, cleaning compound and toilet preparation manufacturing	406	Private-Label Cleaning & Personal Care
3259	Other chemical product manufacturing	440	Custom Resin Compounding (and an unscreened residual)