Scientific alliance deciphers the role of microorganisms in the cadmium-to-cacao pathway

• AGROSAVIA and Universidad EAFIT provide new scientific evidence on the role of soil bacteria in the dynamics of cadmium in cacao crops, paving the way for sustainable solutions based on bioremediation. These will offer key tools to improve the quality and safety of Colombian cacao in line with international standards.

 

Mosquera, Cundinamarca. April 6, 2026. The search for solutions to mitigate the presence of cadmium (Cd) in cacao cultivation has taken a major step forward with the consolidation of a research partnership between AGROSAVIA and Universidad EAFIT. Daniel Bravo, Ph.D., Associate Researcher at AGROSAVIA’s Tibaitatá Research Center, has led a research line focused on bioremediation for more than a decade, leveraging the potential of soil bacteria to “trap” the metal and prevent it from reaching the cacao bean. This work has been strengthened through close collaboration with academia, particularly the joint efforts with Universidad EAFIT and Claudia Jaramillo, former researcher at that institution and now a professor at Universidad de Antioquia.

 

A collaboration with history and results

The synergy between AGROSAVIA and Universidad EAFIT initially materialized through the co-supervision of Jaramillo’s doctoral thesis by Researcher Bravo. This partnership enabled the integration of geomicrobiology with advanced high-throughput sequencing techniques to explore the composition of bacterial communities in cacao-growing soils.

As a result of this effort, a pioneering study was recently published identifying microbial composition and its direct relationship with cadmium distribution in crops in the department of Antioquia. This research revealed the presence of little-known groups of microorganisms in these soils, such as the phyla Latescibacteria, Thaumarchaeota, and Rokubacteria—one of the first reports of its kind in cacao agroecosystems. The contribution also included understanding the microbial activity of these bacteria, analyzed through isothermal microcalorimetry, a highly important technique for determining how bacteria behave under different cadmium scenarios in cacao soils.

 

Understanding the microbiota as an ally

Knowledge of the microbiota (the community of microorganisms inhabiting the soil) is crucial because these small bacterial populations act as regulators of the ecosystem. The study demonstrated that the composition of these communities can influence the mobility of cadmium from the soil into the plant. By understanding these dynamics, researchers can design more effective bioremediation strategies that harness the metabolic plasticity of these bacteria to immobilize the metal naturally.

 

New research horizons between cadmium and adapted cacao in Colombia

The future of this academic and scientific collaboration between AGROSAVIA and Universidad de Antioquia is aimed at deepening the understanding of this interaction through new approaches. The next stages of research will go beyond microbial characterization of the soil to focus on additional processes that may further improve conditions for Colombian producers seeking to mitigate cadmium. This synergy between AGROSAVIA and EAFIT is undoubtedly contributing to Colombian cacao’s ongoing efforts to meet international safety and competitiveness standards in demanding markets such as Europe and the United States.

Support for the bioremediation research line, as one of AGROSAVIA’s core functions, undoubtedly enables other stakeholders, such as Universidad EAFIT, to contribute nature-based evidence toward solutions to mitigate cadmium in cacao cultivation.

Click here to access the scientific article “Integrating natural gradients and controlled assays to reveal bacterial responses to cadmium in Theobroma cacao L. soils.”

For more information, please contact the first author, Claudia Jaramillo, at cjaram79@eafit.edu.co or the second author, Bravo, at dbravo@agrosavia.co.

This work was funded at EAFIT by the project “Application of convergent technologies in cacao cultivation” and by Colombia’s Ministry of Science, Technology, and Innovation through the Bicentennial Doctoral Excellence Program. Likewise, within the framework of the AGROSAVIA–EAFIT partnership, it received partial support from the international project “STDF - Enhancing capacity development and knowledge exchange to support the management of cadmium levels in cacao from Latin America and the Caribbean for export to the European Union.”