The sugar cane agroindustries of Latin America and the Caribbean meet this week in Costa Rica at the XII Atalac Congress. Since last Monday, technicians from countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Guatemala and Colombia, among others, share knowledge and experiences to improve scientific research and the technological capacity of this productive sector.

The director of Cenicaña, Freddy Garcés, participated in the opening ceremony of the event with a presentation about the challenges and opportunities of the Colombian sugar cane sector on its path to being an agroindustry 4.0.

For the next few days, the academic program of the event includes four other presentations from the Research Center:

'Critical period of competition with weeds for the template of two varieties of sugar cane', by Yeison Mauricio Quevedo, head of the Physiology area; 'Advances in varietal development for the piedmont environment', by Luis Orlando López, researcher in the Breeding area.

The Director of the Factory Processes Program, Nicolás Gil, presents 'Strategies to increase sustainability and productivity in sugar-energy processes' and Claudia Echeverri, Entomology researcher, has the presentation 'Evaluation of the damage caused by Diatraea in sugarcane varieties in regional tests'.

During the installation of the event, attendees were invited to the XXXII World Congress of Sugarcane Technicians to be held in Colombia in August 2025.

After 30 years, Colombia will host the most important congress of Sugarcane Technicians in the world, which every three years brings together more than 1.500 attendees around topics of interest in the sugarcane agroindustry.