Bayer CropScience CEO Jim Blome Elected Independent Board Chair of Inocucor Technologies
March 3rd, 2015
San Francisco, March 3, 2015—Jim Blome, President & CEO of Bayer CropScience L.P. and Head of Crop Protection for its North American region, has joined the Board of Directors of Montreal agriculture biotech company Inocucor Technologies, Inc. as Independent Non-Executive Chairman.
Inocucor’s President and CEO, Donald R. Marvin, a veteran of the North American bioscience industry, said Blome will bring perspective from his 25 years in mainstream agriculture to Inocucor’s board. The announcement of Blome’s board appointment coincides with his speaking engagement at the World Agri-Tech Investment Summit in San Francisco today.
“The range of potential customers for Inocucor’s products is huge,” said Marvin. “We want our board to reflect the perspective of all of agriculture, from the dedicated organic farmer to the mainstream production farmer who wants to increase yields from innovative technologies.”
Inocucor produces biological soil, seed and plant accelerators that improve yields, and promote healthier, more resilient soils and plants for organic farmers, greenhouse growers and mainstream production farmers. Its first-generation product, Inocucor™ Garden Solution® is approved as a water treatment in the provinces of Quebec and Ontario, Canada and as a soil amendment in 23 U.S. states. It is OMRI Listed® for use in organic production.
Blome said his interest in Inocucor stems from its pioneering work in biologicals for agriculture that are available to farmers now.
“Everyone in agriculture is optimistic about the potential of these cutting-edge biologicals to help create healthier soils and offer additional solutions as part of best management practices for growers,” said Blome, who was raised on his family’s Hubbard, Iowa, farm and has worked in agriculture for 25 years. “Inocucor’s technology is unique, because it combines mixed groups of yeasts and bacteria, rather than a single species, into one solution.”
Inocucor was founded in 2007 by two Canadian scientists, Dr. Margaret Bywater–Ekegärd and Ananda Lynn Fitzsimmons, who combined their knowledge of the human and plant microbiomes to create biological soil and plant accelerators for agriculture. The company’s patented fermentation process for isolating and combining naturally occurring yeasts and bacteria is similar to that used in winemaking.
In its first two years of field trials for row crops at McGill University, Inocucor’s second-generation bio-stimulant product for large-scale agriculture produced yield increases of at least 10 percent. In a 2014 trial with Packman Broccoli by Clemson University’s Sustainable Agriculture Program, Inocucor-treated plants with its first generation product, Garden Solution, out-yielded untreated broccoli by 38 percent. Recent trials can be viewed at http://concentricag.com/science/field-studies
In early February 2015, Inocucor closed an interim round of financing from Cycle Capital Management with participation from Desjardins-Innovatech. Inocucor has co-product development partnerships underway with Axter Agrosciences Inc., one of Canada’s leading providers of foliar feeding crop solutions, and with McGill University’s Department of Plant Sciences.
About Jim Blome
James Blome is the President & CEO for Bayer CropScience LP and the Head of Crop Protection for the North American region. He grew up on a family farm in Hubbard, Iowa and is a graduate of Iowa State University. Blome has more than 25 years of leadership experience in agriculture. Prior to his current position at Bayer CropScience, he held executive positions at Valent (Sumitomo Chemical), Agriliance LLC, Agtrol International and Griffin LLC. He currently serves on the Executive Board of Directors for CropLife America, the Sponsors Board of Directors for Future Farmers of America, the North Carolina Agricultural Biotechnology Advisory Council, MBA Executive Advisory Council for Iowa State University and as Chairman of the National Wild Turkey Federation’s Foundation Board. He is the 2013 recipient of the Henry A. Wallace Award from Iowa State University for outstanding leadership and service to agriculture.
About Bayer CropScience
Bayer is a global enterprise with core competencies in the fields of health care, agriculture and high-tech materials. Bayer CropScience, the subgroup of Bayer AG responsible for the agricultural business, has annual sales of EUR 8,819 million (2013) and is one of the world’s leading innovative crop science companies in the areas of seeds, crop protection and non-agricultural pest control. The company offers an outstanding range of products including high value seeds, innovative crop protection solutions based on chemical and biological modes of action as well as an extensive service backup for modern, sustainable agriculture. In the area of non-agricultural applications, Bayer CropScience has a broad portfolio of products and services to control pests from home and garden to forestry applications. The company has a global workforce of 22,400 and is represented in more than 120 countries. This and further news is available at: www.press.bayercropscience.com.
