A new startup has emerged from stealth onto the North Texas scene. And it’s looking to bring biotech to the ground level.
Southlake-based Farm Shield is an agriculture innovation startup looking to tackle crop protection with a proprietary supramolecular host chemistry. The company says its solution can help growers cut costs and be more eco-friendly.
“There’s a clear pull in our industry for sustainable practices, so we explored the potential of our technology to reduce effective rates and improve efficacy of different active ingredients,” said John Appel, Farm Shield’s president, in a prepared statement.
According to its website, Farm Shield started with the question: How might we help crop protection companies truly differentiate from the competition? The solution comes with Farm Shield’s chemistry, which helps manufacturers of crop protection formulas blend with other active ingredients to give a boost to their performance.
The company has been validating and trialing its product with researchers at Syntech Research and Michigan State University on herbicides and fungicides. It says that by combining its supramolecular tech with other crop protection formulations, it will help deliver more value to farmers by requiring less usage, while also helping formula manufacturers commercialize products more quickly.
“This is a unique approach to improve the many existing crop protection products already on the market,” said David Coorts, technical director at Farm Shield, in a prepared statement. “With our supramolecular host chemistry, we can breathe new life into these active ingredients.”
Appel said that most crop protection products are off patent, meaning many farmers are using products created decades ago. With its new emergence from stealth, the company hopes it will help “usher in this pivotal next-gen innovation.”
Farm Shield is a portfolio company of BPS Agriculture, marking the second venture to emerge from the firm. In a press release, BPS teased a third entity is set to emerge from stealth later this summer.
“This is meaningful for crop protection manufacturers in that it allows them to out-perform the competition,” Appel said.
