AGROEXPO, the appointment with the countryside ended

Bogotá, Capital District. July 24, 2023. The twenty-fourth version of the AGROEXPO fair in Bogotá culminated. This space brought together, from July 13 and for ten days, the productive sector, the institutional framework, and the private company of the country's agricultural sector, whose objective has historically been to promote the development of this line.

More than 6,000 people visited the experiential stand of the Corporation, where the bioeconomy, food security and nutrition, climate change, and work with communities were the pillars through which AGROSAVIA presented part of its institutional work and technological offer to the public that came to the fair.

Within the bioeconomy pillar, two fundamental issues were addressed: the germplasm banks of the nation, including animals, vegetables, and microorganisms that the Corporation manages, its operation, and its importance to guarantee the conservation of the country's biodiversity. And bioproducts, whose active principles come from renewable biological sources.

Through three models, those attending the fair could see first-hand a commitment to articulate production systems based on climate change, which mitigates environmental impact and takes advantage of available resources without losing productivity or increasing costs. Agrosilvopastoril arrangements are production strategies that integrate different components to improve land use, productivity, and economic, environmental, and social sustainability. The multi-nutritional blocks (MNB) are supplements that provide nitrogen, energy, and minerals to ruminants, especially in critical times when the availability and quality of forage are low—finally, the agroforestry system, a special cacao planting model with fine tropical wood.

The food and nutritional security pillar is part of an investigation with an agroecological approach welcomed by the Corporation, which manages to eradicate hunger and ensure food autonomy without losing sight of citizens' nutritional needs and/or tastes. They are the ones who increasingly demand information and quality for decision-making. Furthermore, the attendees heard about the National Seed Plan, a project aimed at producing seeds and plant material maintained by the Corporation to guarantee their availability while strengthening local seed production systems and involving community organizations in regions and with ethnic groups.

In AGROSAVIA, the knowledge and respect dialogue for different worldviews concerning the land is part of the research agenda. In this sense, and as an example, Flor del Carmen Sierra, a leader of Asoarracachos, an association from the municipality of Cajamarca, Tolima, was present during the fair. For her, the arracacha variety AGROSAVIA La 22 was an excellent option to grow economically and gain access to training. Today, her family and the association members process this variety on an industrial scale; they have arracacha by-products, such as flour, beer, handicrafts, snacks, and sabajón explicitly made with the material developed by the Corporation.

Cristian Mosquera, AGROSAVIA's Event Leader, said, "At AGROEXPO, we wanted to bring a strong message of how we do science to transform the agricultural sector, but also science with a social focus that allows us to generate an impact on communities and producers to improve their quality of life. They were days of hard work to teach the public our work experientially and to learn lessons on how to potentiate our events."

"The stand was divided into a thematic route, where people initiated the route with a roulette wheel that explained, in context, what AGROSAVIA is, what its Research Centers are, how many researchers the Corporation has, etc. With that context, they proceeded to visit each of the pillars. Each pillar had a proposal to learn by doing, promoting interaction in our public, either through games, virtual reality, or manual work, among others, such as AgroKids, a space to generate in children, the appropriation for science and the countryside," added Mosquera.

Within the framework of AGROEXPO 2023, the Corporation launched a biofertilizer game, an App available in the Play Store (Apple Store coming soon), intending to bring young people closer to the countryside and with the challenge of creating a farm so that they already understand the importance of bioproducts and their differences with others in the market.

AGROSAVIA also held chocolate-tasting classes, taking advantage of the knowledge of our researchers. Further, Lucero Rodríguez, an M.Sc. Researcher from the La Suiza Research Center and part of the cocoa liquor and chocolate tasting panel accompanied us.