[Interview] ShareGreen CEO Seo Yoon-kyung targets exports to five Asian countries by 2028 with ‘SG10’

In 2006, Seo Yoon-kyung, who was growing sansevieria in a vinyl greenhouse of just over 260㎡ (80 pyeong), was taken to the emergency room after spraying pesticide to control scale insects. The diagnosis was acute pesticide poisoning. Because flowerpots for wholesale could not contain insects, she sprayed the chemical obtained from a pesticide shop while wearing rubber gloves and shorts. “At the time, the pesticide shop only gave me the chemical and nutrients and told me how many times to dilute them. They said nothing about safety,” she said. “The scale insect chemical is very strong, but I had no idea how dangerous the solvent in it was, and it almost got into my lungs.”

Twenty years later, she is the CEO of ShareGreen Co., Ltd., an agricultural corporation that makes plant-derived eco-friendly pest and disease control products. The accident that day while helping her mother’s flower shop led her to study microorganisms and pests, and then to found a company.
 

From a flower-shop pesticide accident to pest Ph.D. and startup founder

Seo recalled, “When customers came to the flower shop, the question they asked most often was ‘What’s wrong with this?’ and when I looked closely, most cases were diseases or pests. If I asked a pesticide shop, the only answer was to spray chemicals, and at that time there were no eco-friendly agents.” Determined after the accident to properly study pests and diseases, she earned a master’s degree in rhizosphere microorganisms from the Department of Environmental Horticulture at the Graduate School of Science and Technology, University of Seoul, and a doctorate in agricultural pests from the Department of Horticulture at Kongju National University. In effect, her master’s program dealt with microorganisms and her doctoral program with pest control.

The subject she focused on in her doctoral work was the broad mite. With a body length of about 0.2 mm, it is difficult to see with the naked eye and must be observed under a microscope. “There were only two related papers in Korea, and I covered control as well,” Seo said. “I also helped a lot when the Agricultural Research and Extension Services studied this pest.”

The biggest problem she felt through her research was pesticide resistance. As the same chemicals were used repeatedly, pests developed resistance, and farms had to spray more often or search for other pesticides. Seo explained, “When I researched control technology with researchers at the agricultural technology institute and confirmed actual pesticide effects, I became convinced that if the results did not remain in the laboratory but became products, they could provide real help to many farms. The idea of creating technology actually used in the field, rather than research ending with a single paper, led to the startup.”

ShareGreen opened on March 18, 2022, and began joint research with the Chungcheongnam-do Agricultural Research and Extension Services that same year. According to the company, sales in 2026 have already exceeded three times the level of its first year. Production is carried out directly through its own processes.
 

Making imported ‘adjuvants’ in-house

The core that ShareGreen emphasizes is not the active ingredient itself but the “adjuvant.” It directly develops and produces, from plant-derived materials, both efficacy enhancers that raise control performance and emulsifiers that evenly mix ingredients in water. “Other companies buy adjuvants, but we make and use our own natural plant-based efficacy enhancers,” Seo said. “Because the pests killed differ depending on what role the adjuvant plays, developing adjuvants tailored to pests is important, but Korea is weak in this field.”
The invention “agricultural pest insecticide composition,” which underpins this technology, won the Grand Prix at the 18th Korea International Women’s Invention Exposition in 2025, awarded to only one of 445 entries from 16 countries. The company cited as the reason for the award that it secured in-house an efficacy enhancer made from native Korean plants, reducing high dependence on imports.

However, Seo said a product is not completed simply by the word “natural.” “Using a plant-derived emulsifier does not automatically mean less phytotoxicity or better storage stability; results vary depending on the type and concentration of raw materials, mixing ratio, crop and usage environment,” she explained. “With natural materials, long storage can cause layer separation, precipitation or viscosity changes, so simply mixing them is not enough to make a product.”
 

From rotenone-based SG1 to SG10

The products are based on rotenone obtained from Derris roots. Rotenone inhibits cellular respiration in pests. The company explains that repellent action, oviposition suppression, coating of pest cuticles and efficacy enhancement work together to extend the effect. Made with plant extracts such as essential oils, the products have an herbal scent and can be used without aversion not only in smart farms but also at home, the company says. However, because rotenone is highly toxic to fish, care is needed when spraying near streams or fish farms.

The first product, SG1, was publicly listed in January 2023 as an organic farming material for insect pest management (public notice-2-5-297). Aphids and weevils were the control targets. SG10, developed later, was publicly listed as an organic farming material for disease and pest management (public notice-2-6-128).

The company presents seven pest species and powdery mildew as SG10 control targets. According to Choi Yong-seok, an agricultural researcher at the Chungcheongnam-do Agricultural Research and Extension Services who participated in joint research on the SG series, the institute’s plant pathology team tested an SG1-based substance used in SG10 against powdery mildew on melon leaves in 2022, and the control value was 71%. The company says the hassle of separately spraying insecticides and fungicides can be reduced to a single spray. 

Seo emphasized, “The key to broadening control targets was not increasing the concentration of one ingredient, but aligning interactions among raw materials, proper concentration, emulsification and dispersion, crop safety, and storage stability. From SG1 to SG10, it was not a process of making a stronger chemical, but of finely refining formulation and combination technology.”

She also personally oversees field verification. With tomato farms in Yesan-gun, Chungnam, and cucumber farms in Asan-si as test beds, when a new agent is made, the company monitors it continuously for three years to check for problems such as phytotoxicity and improve the product. The company says it selects only raw materials that do not leave residues. “If farmers use our product and residues are detected, their certification can be canceled, so we bring samples from the field and test them all,” Seo said. She also operates a pesticide-free farm and steadily provides farmer training.

R&D projects are also continuing. In 2025, the company was selected for the Rural Development Administration’s project to develop organic farming materials for the tomato leaf miner and is developing them, and in 2026 it is developing, under a government project, an eco-friendly agent that simultaneously controls four diseases and pests including thrips, mites, powdery mildew and downy mildew.

Southeast Asian market found through durian residue issues

Overseas, the company is first targeting Indonesia and Vietnam. The reason Seo turned her attention to Southeast Asia was durian. “The pesticide residue problem in tropical fruits is very serious,” she said. “That is why I travel between Indonesia and Vietnam.”

In Indonesia, ShareGreen confirmed efficacy through laboratory tests commissioned from IPB University. In a test conducted from October to December 2024, SG10 diluted 1,000 times (0.1%) was applied once to silverleaf whitefly nymphs, and the corrected mortality rate rose to 60.1% after 24 hours, 87.8% after 48 hours and 91.1% after 72 hours. In an SG1 test included in the same report, the corrected mortality rate of cotton aphids was 100% 48 hours after treatment with a 500-fold (0.2%) dilution.

“Silverleaf whiteflies are pests that are really hard to kill, but we got figures like this,” Seo said. However, she added, “Greenhouses differ in temperature, humidity, pest density, growth stage and spraying method, so they cannot be exactly the same as laboratory results. We are continuing to verify whether the effects are reproduced in actual domestic cultivation environments such as tomatoes, Korean melons and cucumbers.”

In Indonesia, the company is currently undergoing approval procedures such as product registration and distribution permits. With the West Java provincial government, it is pursuing the use of eco-friendly agents in vegetable production in the region. In March 2026, it signed a contract with a local private company to sell products worth a total of 1.8 billion won from 2028.

In Vietnam, it conducted tests with a local company operating banana plantations. According to Seo, the first test at a farm heavily damaged by scale insects showed an 89% control effect, which she assessed as “a good result for open fields.”

Because contracted supply will begin in 2028, Seo’s position is that export performance will be disclosed “based on actual shipments and sales, not contract amounts, once approvals are completed and full-scale commercial exports begin.”

‘Technology in Korea, raw materials for export’… Derris procurement remains a task

The backbone of the overseas business is “technology in Korea, raw materials for export.” Core processes such as raw-material extraction, processing and blending, efficacy enhancement and formulation are kept in Korea. ShareGreen steadily supplies the core raw materials it produces to local markets, while local partners handle only limited processes such as final blending, filling and packaging.
“If we hand over everything down to the core, risks of technology leakage or production of similar products arise in the long term,” Seo said. “Our goal is not to sell technology once and be done, but to create a structure in which raw materials containing our technology are exported continuously.” In the long term, the company is also considering building pesticide factories overseas based on export expansion.

Raw-material procurement remains a challenge. Derris is not produced domestically and is imported from India, China and several Southeast Asian countries. Depending on exchange rates and crop conditions, not only prices but also active-ingredient content can vary. ShareGreen diversifies procurement countries and suppliers, secures volumes in advance when prices are stable, and operates safety stock. Incoming raw materials are checked for active ingredients, and only those exceeding standards are used. Research is also being conducted to find materials from native Korean plants that can replace or supplement Derris.
 

Expanding the Asian market by building approval and field data

ShareGreen has set goals of exporting products and raw materials to at least five Asian countries, including Japan, by 2028, and increasing its eco-friendly crop protection product line to more than 10 items by 2030.
Seo cited country-by-country product registration and approvals, field demonstration data, production scale, raw-material supply chains, overseas sales personnel and funding as areas still lacking. To address this, the company plans to expand joint demonstrations with universities, agricultural technology institutions and local research institutes to accumulate objective data, and to secure intellectual property rights through alternative raw materials based on native plants and new formulations. Overseas, rather than making large-scale investments, it will expand markets in the order of “demonstration → product registration → export of raw materials and finished products → expansion of local distribution.”

“As climate change increases pests, more pesticides are used, but because of resistance, pests do not die easily,” Seo said. “After studying agriculture, I found that diseases and pests are what farmers work hardest on but are least able to solve, and this reality of using so much chemical pesticide must change.” She added, “I hope farmers can use agents usefully and appropriately in the right place at the right time. I think that is the role I can fulfill.”