Bayer CropScience is aggressively claiming its share of the swiftly expanding biopesticides market. This week, the Big 6 company announced it will buy Davis, California-based AgraQuest for $425 million plus milestone payments as it moves to strengthen its fruits and vegetables business.<\/p>\n
The deal illuminates the continued flourishing demand for naturally derived crop protection products in recent years. Bayer, building on the blockbuster success of its Votivo biological nematicide, said the acquisition will help it expand technology for green products and open up opportunities in other crops and markets. <\/p>\n
“The growing fruits and vegetables market, which today accounts for more than 25% of our sales, is of strategic importance for us. We plan to achieve [$3.72 billion] in sales in this segment by 2020 and with the acquisition of AgraQuest we are underlining our growth ambitions,” Sandra Peterson, CEO of Bayer CropScience, said in a statement. “We are the first in our industry to offer farmers a truly comprehensive range of integrated crop solutions based on seeds, traits and combined chemical crop protection and biological control,” she added.<\/p>\n
“I think it’s a very exciting step,” Denise Manker, Vice President of Global Product Development at AgraQuest, told Farm Chemicals International. <\/em>“I believe the answer is using a combination of the tools we have available to us to create the best programs for growers. Using the most modern synthetic chemistry available partnered with effective biopesticides, we can address numerous challenges faced by growers today including residue, toxicity and resistance management. I think this news demonstrates that biopesticides play an important role in crop protection.”<\/p>\n AgraQuest’s products — whhich are sold in more than 30 countries — include Serenade, Rhapsody, Sonata and Ballad branded fungicide and Requiem insecticides. They are used in diverse markets as fruits and vegetables, broad-acre crops, post-harvest protection, turf, home and garden and animal health. Several new AgraQuest products, including acaracides, fungicides and nematicides, are in development and have undergone successful early field evaluations, Bayer said.<\/p>\n Under the deal, Bayer will integrate AgraQuest’s biopesticides production facility in Tlaxcala, Mexico, and its R&D site in Davis. AgraQuest employs a staff of about 250.<\/p>\n “AgraQuest is ideally positioned as a technology leader in the global biological market and by joining forces with Bayer CropScience we will be able to develop revolutionary, tailor-made biological solutions,” AgraQuest CEO Marcus Meadows-Smith said in a statement.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Source: Bayer CropScience; edited by Jaclyn Sindrich, Managing Editor<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A Bayer CropScience est\u00e1 reivindicando agressivamente sua fatia do mercado de biopesticidas em r\u00e1pida expans\u00e3o. Esta semana, a empresa Big 6 anunciou\u2026<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[437,115,78,291],"class_list":["post-29126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biopesticides","tag-agraquest","tag-bayer","tag-biopesticides","tag-mergers-acquisitions"],"yoast_head":"\n