The Palmira Research Center was inaugurated in 1928, including research on sugarcane, rice, beans, soybeans, pastures, tobacco, and fruit crops. A team of Puerto Rican consultants was hired by the then Secretary of Industries of the Valle del Cauca, Ciro Molina Garcés, to establish the Center.

The Agricultural Station belonged to the Governor's Office, but in 1938 it was transferred to the Ministry of Agriculture and took the name of National Research Center. In 1943, the mandate was revised to include maize and cocoa, and in 1963, the Department of Agricultural Research (Departamento de Investigación Agraria, DIA) handed over the Center to the Colombian Agricultural Institute (Instituto Colombiano Agropecuario, ICA), which established the animal sciences and veterinary medicine programs.

In 1993, the Colombian Agricultural Research Corporation (AGROSAVIA, formerly Corpoica), was established, and in 1994 it received the Research Center on loan. Currently, the Center is carrying out research projects on avocado, citrus and passion flower fruits, pineapple, guava, cassava, cocoa and oil palm. It has an important collection of genetic resources, especially of fruit and forest species from various continents; and animal resources, such as Hartón del Valle cattle. The Center provides support to the National Seed Plan with species such as peach palm, maize and beans, and is part of the Bio-Pacific Science and Technology Park (Parque Científico y Tecnológico Biopacífico).

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Director

• Diego Aristizabal

• (+57) 60 1 9144677, Ext. 2501
• daristizabal@agrosavia.co
• View profile

Agricultural Engineer from the National University of Colombia, Bogotá, and M.Sc. in Plant Pathology from the same university and from the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines. He has served as director of AGROSAVIA’s La Libertad, Palmira, Tibaitatá and Turipaná research centers and is the national leader of AGROSAVIA’S National Seed Plan. He has experience in research on rice breeding and plant pathology working for the Colombian Agricultural Institute (Instituto Colombiano Agropecuario, ICA) and at AGROSAVIA, and was Colombia's representative (2008-2014) on the Board of Directors of the Regional Fund for Agricultural Technology (Fondo Regional de Tecnología Agropecuaria, FONTAGRO).

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