There are many things that we look at in terms of all the line items from a sales and general and admin perspective. That’s where we’re cutting back. So, we’re cutting back in the short term on things that we know will not impact our customer intimacy, won’t stop us getting volume or demand that’s out there. So, really focusing on the customers. Everything from the customer back, we’re doing everything we can to reduce that spend. Andrew, do you want to add anything?
Andrew Sandifer: Yes. I just would emphasize that we are controlling spend. We are still going to be spending more dollars in R&D this year than we did last year. We’re just not growing quite as fast. Similarly with SG&A. And as Mark pointed to, we’re not making any compromises on investing in the commercial operations of the Company and that expanding market access and building that closer intimacy with the customer. We are being very careful in metering our spending in other areas. And I think this is something that we’ve demonstrated over a number of different disruptions that have occurred in the past 12, 15 years that we can do, particularly in the last 5. So, we will be spending well below what we started the year planning to spend, but we’ll continue to make investments that are going to drive the long-term future of the Company. And nothing that we’re doing has any structural impact to the Company’s ability to grow.
Operator: Our next question comes from Josh Spector from UBS.
Lucas Beaumont: This is Lucas Beaumont on Josh. So I just wanted to get back to the volumes, if we could. So if sort of I understood your comments earlier correctly and a chunk of the volume growth over the last two years was more driven by sort of customers that are ordering and it’s basically going into inventory versus the underlying demand. So, I mean, if we kind of look then at sort of your trends for this year in the last two, over a kind of three-year period, you’re basically in line with that sort of long-term low single-digit kind of volume growth rate. So I guess that as we think about the setup for next year, does that mean that we should basically going to just return to trend growth from this like lower level and not really expect more of a rebound, or how should we kind of think about that? Thanks.
Mark Douglas: Yes, good question. I think your thesis is pretty close to how we think about it. I think going forward, listen, it’s early August, it’s almost impossible for us to think through to 2024 right now. We haven’t even really started our budget process. But if I just take a step back and think about the fundamentals of the market that we’re talking about, what do we see? We see soft commodities and grains at very good prices in the marketplace. Not quite at the peak they were about a year, 18 months ago, but not far off and certainly well above the long-term average for these products. You look at the stock-to-use ratios, stock-to-use ratios in many of the soft commodities have been trending down. Why? Because we’ve had yield issues around the world.
As climate change really does impact agriculture, you could see what happened as we talked about in Latin America last year, unprecedented drought in South of Brazil and Argentina. We’ve had flooding in the north of India. We’ve got a dry Midwest right now in the U.S., heat in Europe. All those things contribute to a higher commodity price and lower yields. So, that’s a good backdrop for somebody to sell into. So fundamentally, we know there is demand. We know we have to increase productivity by about 3% a year just to keep hunger at bay around the world. So I think the backdrop is solid. We see acreage increases anticipated, especially in Brazil and other parts of Latin America as we go into the next season. So for me, that on-the ground grower view of the world is positive.
And right now, it’s hard to see what would change that. So, it’s a little early to say what our growth rates would be next year, but I am expecting a positive backdrop as we roll through 2024.
Lucas Beaumont: Great. Thanks. And then just on the fourth quarter specifically, could you walk us through your margin assumptions that are getting to your 4Q guide? So how much of that is kind of from volume catch-up versus more normal trends? And how much do you expect raw materials to help there in the fourth quarter? Thanks.
Andrew Sandifer: It’s Andrew here, on margins in the fourth quarter. Look, I think it’s all of the above. We do have positive volume contribution. But remember, when we look at volume, we include mix and volume. It’s a strong quarter for us for new product introduction. Mark mentioned two specific products for Brazil that we have very high expectations for. But it’s a broad portfolio of newer products that will contribute to a more positive mix. We do have cost tailwinds. We do have input cost favorability that we expect to sustain in Q4. We do have some modest continued pricing benefits. Now, it’s not necessarily new price increases, but the year-on-year comparison from where we’ve raised prices to at this point still carrying over versus the prior year.
