Vive la
crop!
Nanotech venture Vive Crop Protection of Toronto has developeda more eco-friendly way to keep pests, fungi and weeds out of farmers’ fields. And that’s just the beginning. By Tyler Hamilton
P
esticides don’t have the best reputation when it comes to their potential impacts on human health, but even more concerning — for regulators especially — are the volatile organic solvents frequently relied on to deliver crop-protection chemicals to farmers’ fields. The solvents themselves are often known carcinogens, not the kind of thing we want on farmland that grows soy, corn and wheat. And they’re not as effective as they could be. Farmers tend to overspray to make sure enough of the active ingredients in insecticides, fungicides and herbicides are dispersed across a field to be effective. It’s why Vive Crop Protection, a Toronto-based nanotechnology company specializing in crop protection, has been attracting so much attention from some of the world’s biggest chemical companies. Vive Crop (formerly Vive Nano, and before that Northern Nanotechnologies) has done away with the need for volatile organic solvents. It has also significantly
12 L’Actualité chimique canadienne
avril 2012