A new product will be in the works for Lake Linden’s
The Nitrate Elimination Company, which just got almost half a million dollars to research new agricultural products.
Right now, the company measures and amends nitrates in soil and water, for agricultural purposes. Customer demand for other types of testing and amendment, like phosphates, have been high, so the small Keweenaw Peninsula company applied for the grant to research and develop similar products for phosphates, which are another compound of concern coming from fertilizers, like the nitrates the company currently tests.
The two-year grant, for $460,000, comes from the Small Business Innovation Research Program of the National Institute of Agriculture, the research arm of the US Department of Agriculture.
"This is a very competitive program," says VP Ellen Campbell. "Only 38 of these grants were awarded nationwide in 2011. At the end of the grant, we’ll have new products for our customers. They’ve been asking us for phosphate testing to go along with our products for measurement of nitrate."
And the grant does mean a few more jobs in Lake Linden; one full-time and two part-time jobs were added to the Nitrate Elimination Company’s staff.
When the two years are up and the new products are ready for production, the Michigan Emerging Technology Fund, part of the MEDC, is granting the company $40,000 to use in marketing the new phosphate test kits.
Writer: Sam Eggleston
Source: Ellen Campbell, The Nitrate Elimination Company
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