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.

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.