Syngenta to expand in RTP

Agriculture biotech firm Syngenta is planning another expansion to its campus in Research Triangle Park, creating 150 jobs in the next five years, officials said Tuesday.

Switzerland-based Syngenta will invest $94 million in a new lab and offices in the Triangle.

The company recently opened a $72 million greenhouse complex in RTP that featured 30 climate-controlled “environments,” allowing crops to be tested under various conditions.

Syngenta already employs more than 1,100 people in North Carolina. The average salary of the new jobs will be $81,624 a year, plus benefits.

“This is an extraordinary time of growth for agriculture in North Carolina,” Michiel van Lookeren Campagne, president of Syngenta Biotechnology Inc., said in a statement. “We are proud to be a part of the region’s growing agricultural technology cluster.”

State officials awarded the company a Jobs Development Investment Grant of up to $3 million if it meets job creation and investment targets in the next 12 years. The North Carolina Community College System also will provide $210,000 in worker training.

North Carolina competed against several states and countries such as China for the Syngenta expansion, officials said.