Speaker Spotlight #2: Development Over Discovery
What if the answer to a shrinking pesticide toolbox isn't finding more active ingredients - but getting more from the ones we already have?
At the 2026 Ontario Pest Management Conference, Dr. Doug Baumann, Chief Technology Officer at Vive Crop Protection, will explore a different approach to crop protection innovation: development over discovery.
As active ingredients are lost through use restrictions, resistance and obsolescence, bringing a completely new active ingredient to market has become quite costly and time-consuming. Meanwhile, growers continue to face increasingly complex pest pressures.
Dr. Baumann will look at how advanced formulation and delivery technologies can change what existing active ingredients are capable of delivering. At Vive, nanotechnology is being used to influence how active ingredients move through soil, penetrate plant tissue and interact with other actives - potentially creating new performance from familiar chemistry.
The presentation will also explore hybrid products that combine synthetic and biological approaches, bringing together the reliability of established chemistry with the potential for new modes of action from biologicals.
From formulation to field validation, Dr. Baumann will discuss what a development-led approach could mean for innovation - and for keeping effective tools in growers' hands.
Meet Dr. Doug Baumann
Dr. M. Douglas Baumann is Chief Technology Officer at Vive Crop Protection, where he leads research and development, regulatory and manufacturing activities involving nanotechnology-enabled crop protection.
Before joining Vive in 2022, Dr. Baumann spent a decade at Syngenta leading multidisciplinary teams in formulation, field development and technical services. His research career spans agriculture, polymer science, biomedical engineering and biochemical engineering, connected by a long-standing interest in nanotechnology.
When the toolbox gets smaller, innovation may mean thinking differently about what's already inside it.
Join Dr. Baumann and our other plenary speakers at the 2026 Ontario Pest Management Conference on November 3 in Guelph ON, as we explore The Next IPM Toolbox: Finding Tomorrow's Solutions.
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