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Potential Opportunities and Challenges for Research Collaboration with Latin America in Agriculture and Food Science Patricia Esquivel,† Alvaro Orjuela,‡ Marcelo Paes Barros,§ and Coralia Osorio*,∥ †
Escuela de Tecnología de Alimentos, Universidad de Costa Rica, 2060 San Pedro, Costa Rica Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, 111321 Bogotá, Colombia § Programa de Pós-graduaçaõ em Ciências da Saúde, Universidade Cruzeiro do Sul, São Paulo, São Paulo 015060-000, Brazil ∥ Departamento de Química, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, AA 14490 Bogotá, Colombia (R&D) investment, infrastructure, and government policies to promote investigation in the different countries. In fact, Brazil is the only LatAm country that spends more than 1% of its GDP on R&D, thus being comparable for example with the United States that spent 2.8% of its GDP in 2013. However, this financial distribution is still very uneven between different Brazilian regions; for instance, the “Fundaçaõ de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo” (FAPESP) has invested 512 million United States dollars (USD) in science during 2013, and the São Paulo state is responsible for >50% of total Brazilian publications every year.3 Regrettably, although agriculture is one of the main economic activities in most of the LatAm countries, the number of publications on the field is notably below when compared to developed countries. This is a challenge to be overcome by increasing collaborations with developed countries, prompted by exchange programs and higher access of young researchers to new technologies. Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) projections atin America (LatAm) is an ethnic and geographic concept indicate that the global agricultural production must be 60% associated with those areas of the American continent higher by 2050 compared to the 2005−2007 period to allow where romance languages (Spanish, Portuguese, or French) feeding the global population. To achieve this goal, increasing predominate, i.e., Mexico, Central and South America, and agrobiodiversity will be of the utmost importance for the global most of the Caribbean islands. According to data of the World agricultural development to increase high-quality, healthy, and 1 Bank, the total population of the region is approximately 640 nutritious food production, especially under climate change million people and most countries have underdeveloped or conditions. One of the main strengths of LatAm is the high developing economies. Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, and biodiversity found in most countries, with many plant species Peru have highest the Gross Domestic Product (GDP, in 2017) available to be studied as sources of novel foods that exhibit of the group. significant nutritional, health-improving, and functional properAn overview of the current LatAm research trends in ties. For example, Brazil, Colombia, and Costa Rica are agriculture and biological science topics was obtained from considered to be one of the main centers of genetic diversity for publication abstract and citation databases for 2006−2016 fruit species in the world. The Amazonian, Andean, and 2 (Figure 1A). According to the data, researchers from Brazil, Caribbean environments found in some of the LatAm Mexico, Argentina, Chile, and Colombia are the most active countries, such as Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Ecuador, publishers responsible for impactful studies (on the basis of the and Costa Rica, are potential sources of yet unknown plant and number of citations). This is remarkable despite the difficulties animal species that might help to reduce food security with authoring in the English language in LatAm and the challenges around the world. Additionally, the large availability limited access to financial resources and leading-edge of arable land and the awareness of sustainable production technologies. Data for the Journal of Agricultural and Food methods will push forward future biorefinery developments in Chemistry (JAFC) (Figure 1B) confirm a similar trend, showing the region (i.e., integrated production of food/feed, energy, that Brazil is leader in the region (37−56% of total LatAm biofuels, and “green” chemicals) through the valorization of publications), followed by Mexico (14−20%), Argentina (6− agricultural waste and crops. 28%), Chile (4−7%), and Colombia (2−11%). It is noteworthy When conducting research on promising food sources in that Colombia has increased its contribution in the region LatAm and other highly biodiverse regions in the world, it is during the last 10 years, likely as a result of the government policies that have forced to publish the research results in highimpact journals. The above-mentioned data directly correlate Received: August 1, 2017 with the number of researchers, research and development ‡
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© XXXX American Chemical Society
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DOI: 10.1021/acs.jafc.7b03572 J. Agric. Food Chem. XXXX, XXX, XXX−XXX
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Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry
Figure 1. Publications from LatAm in agriculture and biological sciences generally and JAFC specifically over the past decade. (A) Top LatAm countries according to the number of publications in the agriculture and biological sciences and their respective citations (2006−2016) obtained from SCImago Journal & Country Rank (SJC).2 The percentage shown is the share that country to the total 31 649 LatAm papers from 2006 to 2016, while values in parentheses are the number of citations to those publications. (B) Changes from 2006 to 2016 in the per-country share of total LatAm publications published in JAFC. Values next to year in the x axis are the total publications from LatAm countries in JAFC in that year.
importantly, many LatAm countries have successfully implemented their doctoral programs to allow for local research capacity development. Nowadays, Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico are recognized as dependable sources for Ph.D. education in LatAm. This means that the region can not only offer natural resources to study but also highly qualified institutions and professionals with the appropriate training programs to perform high-level scientific research. This research has to be geared with the local industry aiming to establish successful partnerships that will improve the production and bring technology advances in LatAm countries, especially in terms of filed, granted, and exploited patents. In summary, the biggest challenges for LatAm food and agriculture science are (i) to improve international collaborations with researchers from developed countries and between the region, to contribute to the global offer in food and agriculture, (ii) to prioritize quality over quantity in terms of scientific output, and (iii) to introduce/reinforce the innovative mentality among young investigators concomitantly to promote industry−university interactions, to increase the number of patents. At present, LatAm is an empowered region because it recognizes its research strengths.
very important to consider not only its biodiversity but also the regulations regarding the access and use of biological materials. Clarity and transparency on this issue will foster biodiversity protection and ancestral knowledge safeguard, thus avoiding the unrestricted use of native resources by foreigners without considering the local researchers. Government policies regarding this issue are different within LatAm. For instance, Costa Rica has been recognized for its effort to preserve and use biodiversity, with the implementation of a National Commission on Biodiversity that involves scientists, the civil society, and the indigenous representatives.4 In contrast, the Colombian policies created time-consuming proceedings and rules that tend to discourage researchers; however, many academic institutions led by Universidad Nacional de Colombia recently have been engaged in improving these laws to protect and study the biodiversity of Colombia. More than 30 years ago, researchers with Ph.D. degrees were scarce in LatAm, and most of their degrees were obtained in Europe or the United States. To address this issue, Brazil developed an ambitious student exchange program called “Science without Borders” (SwB). This program was responsible for the granting of more than 100 000 scholarships for Brazilian students and education professionals to attend universities worldwide between 2011 and 2016. The scientific areas of “sustainable agricultural production” and “biodiversity and bioprospecting” fields accounted for approximately 4700 fellowships.5 In the past few years, the number of Ph.D. researchers has significantly increased in the region, and
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AUTHOR INFORMATION
Corresponding Author
*Telephone: +57-1-3165000, ext. 14472. Fax: +57-1-3165220. E-mail:
[email protected]. B
DOI: 10.1021/acs.jafc.7b03572 J. Agric. Food Chem. XXXX, XXX, XXX−XXX
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Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry ORCID
Alvaro Orjuela: 0000-0003-0329-5601 Coralia Osorio: 0000-0001-6222-0138 Notes
The authors declare no competing financial interest.
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REFERENCES
(1) World Bank. http://data.worldbank.org/ (accessed July 28, 2017). (2) SCImago. SCImago Journal & Country Rank (SJR); http://www. scimagojr.com/countryrank.php?category=1101&area=1100®ion= Latin%20America (accessed July 28 of 2017. (3) Catanzaro, M.; Miranda, G.; Palmer, L.; Bajak, A. South American Science: Big Players. Nature 2014, 510, 204−206. (4) The Guardian. Costa Rica Recognized for Biodiversity Protection; The Guardian: New York, 2010; https://www.theguardian.com/ environment/2010/oct/25/costa-rica-biodiversity (accessed July 23, 2017). (5) McManus, C.; Nobre, C. A. Brazilian Scientific Mobility ProgramScience without BordersPreliminary Results and Perspectives. An. Acad. Bras. Cienc. 2017, 89, 773−776.
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DOI: 10.1021/acs.jafc.7b03572 J. Agric. Food Chem. XXXX, XXX, XXX−XXX
