Hours after local officials approved a $32 million tax abatement program for it, Bayer CropScience announced plans in mid-May to build a $400 million global herbicide production facility in Mobile.
Plans call for about 180 employees, earning an average of $75, 000.
The plant, slated for land adjacent to and belonging to Evonik Degussa at the south edge of the city, will make glufosinate-ammonium, a broad-spectrum contact herbicide. Bayer officials say the plant will double the company’s global output of the product.
The plant is slated to open in 2015, with production in time for the 2016 growing season.
Marketed as Liberty™ and often incorporated with seed, the product is designed to combat weeds that have developed resistance to other herbicides.
It is currently produced at the company’s headquarters in Frankfurt, Germany, and in another U.S. plant, in Muskegon, Mich.
Text by Nedra Bloom
