Developing Solutions: Renewable, Natural-Based Herbicide and Insect Control Products.

For more than 170 years, Emery Oleochemicals has produced natural-based chemicals from renewable oils and fats. Currently, the Agro Green Business Platform is focused on value-added derivative products, including acquired licenses to herbicide and insect control technologies that are based on fatty acid chemistry. Since Emery is primarily a chemical company, collaboration is essential, both internally and externally. Internally, we rely on our Research and Development team to assist with polymer formulation, analytical analysis, and provide laboratory space. Our Sale and Marketing team provides customer feedback and suggests applications for the various products. Externally, we work with universities and other businesses to run full-scale field trials, proof-of-concept laboratory and field trials, suggest application and delivery methods, and testing required by regulatory agencies. This presentation will highlight collaborations on a few projects with our herbicide product: vegetable plasticulture and the control of tobacco flowers; and with our insect control product: varroa mite control in honey bee hives.