FMC Corporation is today one of the five largest crop protection companies in the world, with over 140 years of history. Its origin dates back to 1883 in California, when John Bean invented the first spray pump for citrus and founded the Bean Spray Pump Company. In 1928, after acquiring two companies in the sector, it adopted the name Food Machinery Corporation (FMC) and began its international expansion. The major chemical leap came in 1943, when it bought Niagara Spray & Chemical, which led it to specialize in insecticides and fungicides. The company was a pioneer in the development of pyrethroids, with the synthesis of cypermethrin in 1949 and bifenthrin in the following years, insecticides that marked a before and after in extensive agriculture. Decades later it expanded its business to herbicides, fungicides, and seed treatments, and in 2015 it bought the Danish company Cheminova to gain weight in Europe and Latin America. In 2017 it added part of DuPont's agricultural ...