Hurricane Irene caused hundreds of millions of dollars in crop damage, leaving some farms devastated, N.C. Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler said this morning.

Troxler toured the state and spoke with affected farmers Sunday but said the extent of the damage and financial loss from high winds and flooding won't be known for at least several weeks. But damage to the $750-million-a-year tobacco crop alone will be in the hundreds of millions of dollars, he said.

He noted that the Category 1 hurricane skirted eastern North Carolina just as farmers were preparing to harvest tobacco, corn, cotton and other crops.

"There will be total losses in some areas," Troxler said from his office in downtown Raleigh. "This is going to be a significant agricultural event in the state."

A California real-estate firm plans to build a $13.5 million agricultural technology research center near Research Triangle Park, designed to bolster the state's reputation as a hub in the industry.

Alexandria Real Estate Equities' 50,000-square-foot Alexandria Ag-Tech Center and greenhouse are scheduled to open for business next summer. They will help emerging ag-tech companies develop new products, such as drought-resistant crops or medications extracted from plant materials.

The incubator is expected to provide jobs to 30-40 scientists, but Alexandria officials did not announce tenants for their planned facility. The building will house an 18,000-square-foot greenhouse. 

Bayer CropScience plans to slash about 300 jobs as it closes or downsizes manufacturing facilities in West Virginia and Georgia.

The move is part of a shift by the company away from older insecticides to newer agriculture protection products. Bayer CropScience reached an agreement last summer with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to phase out its Temik brand insecticide, making the production of its active ingredients unnecessary.

"The EPA did some new risk assessments, and they felt there was some concern" about Temik, said Bayer CropScience spokesman Jack Boyne. "We disagreed with some of their calculations, but we agreed to phase out the product."

Bayer CropScience, a subsidiary of the German conglomerate Bayer, employs about 550 people at its North American headquarters in Research Triangle Park, and at other local operations in Morrisville and Clayton.

Novozymes, a Danish company that employs more than 465 people at its North American headquarters in Franklinton, will acquire the crop science subsidiary of a German conglomerate, continuing to beef up its bioagriculture business.

Novozymes announced this morning it will pay $275 million for EMD/Merck Crop BioScience, which is owned by Merck KGaA of Germany. That company isn't affiliated with U.S. pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co.

The acquisition will give Novozymes a company that makes natural inoculants to improve the health of crops such as soybeans, peanuts, corn and wheat. EMD/Merck, which is based in Milwaukee and employs about 165 people, will be added to Novozymes' BioBusiness unit.

Broccoli could get “greener” for East Coast consumers if upcoming experiments at an N.C. State University research station in Waynesville are successful.

NCSU horticulturist Jeanine Davis is part of a multi-university team that’s starting what could be a decade-long project to develop broccoli varieties that can thrive in growing conditions in the East, recruit farmers, and organize networks for growers and distributors.
Most U.S.-grown broccoli is raised in California and Arizona, and not having to ship it the breadth of the country would reduce the carbon footprint of the nutritious stalks.

And  it would be fresher by the time it reached consumers.

The broccoli team is being led by a Cornell University scientist and its work is funded by a $3.2 million U.S. Department of Agriculture grant and $1.7 million in matching contributions from private food-industry companies ,

They’re willing to gamble that kind of money because an East Coast broccoli industry could be worth as much as $100 million a year.

Which, of course, is a lot of cabbage.

Glenn Boyette's success turning his Clayton farm into a holiday entertainment destination has garnered some national attention.

Boyette was the first example in a front-page Wall Street Journal story today about farmers nationwide making money from "agri-tainment" by adding haunted houses, corn mazes and more.

Boyette, 58, told the newspaper that he took over the farm from an uncle in the late 1980s and over time saw profits dry up. Four years ago, he decided to try something new.

Now his 150-acre farm on Loop Road in Johnston County is home to Clayton Fear Farm, a collection of three haunted houses, corn maze, pumpkin patch and other Halloween attractions. In a couple of months, it will switch to Lights on the Neuse, a winter wonderland of blinking lights and decorations.

Sanderson Farms, which is preparing to open one chicken-processing complex in Eastern North Carolina and looking for a site to put a second facility, reported weaker third-quarter sales and profit this morning.

The Mississippi-based company blamed higher production costs, and hot temperatures, which make it harder to for chickens to gain weight.

But executives told analysts on a conference call that the company is shipping chicken meat to Russia again. That country was a major chicken importer but banned U.S. imports last winter over safety concerns. CEO Joe Sanderson said he expects demand to be "spectacular."

Sanderson's shares rose on the report, climbing $2.64 to close at $45.80.

Deere & Co. shares surged today after the company reported stronger first-quarter profit and projected increasing sales of agricultural equipment.

The Illinois-based company, which employs about 700 people in the Triangle, expects sales to rise 6 percent to 8 percent this year, despite "global economic conditions that remain stubbornly weak," CEO Samuel Allen said in a prepared statement.

Syngenta Biotechnology, which recently announced plans to expand its North American headquarters in Research Triangle Park, also is expanding operations in China.

The subsidiary of the Swiss drug maker plans to spend $100 million over the next five years to expand at the Zhongguancun Life Science Park in Beijing. The company already employs 70 people there.

That facility is overseen by officials in RTP, including Michiel van Lookeren Campagne, who left rival Bayer CropScience in October to become president of Syngenta Biotechnology.

"The capability expansion in China, combined with that of our U.S. biotechnology facility, will enable us to continue providing new solutions that increase crop yield and productivity, and offer additional choices for growers,” he said in a prepared statement.

Earlier this month, Syngenta Biotechnology announced it leased 100,000 square feet of additional space in RTP and signed a contract to purchase 50 acres of land as a possible future expansion site.

The company employs more than 400 people at its RTP campus, where it develops crop protection products and genetically engineered corn and soybean seeds that are more resistant to drought and disease.

The N.C. Biotechnology Center has created a new position that will oversee an effort to boost the state's agriculture economy over the next 10 years.

Gwyn Riddick will serve as vice president of the Ag/Bio initiative, which aims to expand the state's agriculture economy to $100 billion a year from $70 billion. He currently is director of the biotech center's Piedmont Triad office.

Riddick will work to develop more ties between the state's biotech and agriculture industries, including exploring new commercial opportunities. Riddick was previously a faculty member at N.C. State and joined the biotech center six years ago.

Some of his work will be organizing an advisory committee that will explore ways to use biotech to improve the state's crop, animal and marine resources.

The biotech center is a state-supported nonprofit based in Research Triangle Park run by CEO Norris Tolson.