BASF Invests In Agriculture

BASF is building facilities and licensing technology to expand its agricultural chemicals business. The German company plans to spend more than $270 million to boost capacity for the herbicides dicamba and dimethenamid-p at its Beaumont, Texas, plant and to upgrade facilities in Hannibal, Mo. Dicamba is an older product that is finding new use in controlling weeds that have grown resistant to the common pesticide glyphosate. Engenia, a dicamba-containing herbicide set for launch in 2015, is one of 20 new products BASF plans to introduce in North America within the next two years. The firm says the U.S. expansions are part of a plan to spend $2.5 billion worldwide by 2018 to increase crop protection product capacity. Separately, BASF has licensed rights to an insecticide, code-named MCI-8007, developed by Japan’s Mitsui Chemicals. Featuring a novel mode of action, the active ingredient can be used on a variety of insects and crops, BASF says.