The Direction of the Journal, in the year of the Golden Anniversary of the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, recognizes the founder of the Revista de Ciencias Agrícolas, Dr. Mario Blasco Lamenca. For this reason, in addition to thanking the man who founded the journal in 1969, it makes a portrait of the personality of this outstanding scientist.

Mario Blasco Lamenca is a Spanish citizen who established his residence in Colombia, where he first lived for about twelve years. He studied agronomic engineering at the Universidad Nacional in Palmira, where he graduated with a comprehensive work on the soils of the Amazon, which, in the opinion of the authors of the book Dynamics of Amazonian Soils, published in 2010 by SINCHI, is "possibly the first thesis work done in the Colombian Amazon region”.

With a scholarship from the Universidad Nacional for his high academic qualities, he enters the University of London, England, where he obtains the title of Philosophy Doctor in Soils and the Diploma of the Imperial College of Science and Technology in Agricultural Chemistry. He worked as a professor of soils at the Faculty of Agronomy in Palmira until 1968, when he was sent on commission to the Universidad de Nariño in Pasto, where for two years he was Dean and Professor of the ITA, today the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences.

In 1969, he founded the Revista de Ciencias Agrícolas, and in the presentation of the first issue of this publication, he stated: "We believe that the Instituto Tecnológico Agrícola of the Universidad de Nariño, despite its recent foundation, has reached the academic level that allows it to sustain a publication, at first biannual, of scientific character"; He also pointed out that the journal was open to original and high-level collaborations from other places. The research program on volcanic soils, led and advanced by Dr. Blasco Lamenca, achieved world renown.

He returns to Palmira as a teacher, and in 1971, he is called professor of soil microbiology at the Tropical Teaching and Research Center of the IICA of the OAS in Turrialba, Costa Rica. He became a professor, researcher, and head of the Department of Soils and Tropical Crops. Blasco Lamenca's scientific production on soils, the result of his work in Palmira, Pasto, and Turrialba, is published in Spanish and English in prestigious journals that have received his collaborations.

In 1972, he became IICA's Research Specialist for the Andean Zone. Director of IICA for Colombia and Ecuador until 1991, when he decided to retire from IICA and return to Spain, where he continued his work as a researcher under the auspices of the European Union.

For his achievements, Blasco Lamenca was distinguished in 1973 as an Honorary Professor of the Universidad de Nariño, and the Colombian Society of Soil Science exalted him to the status of Honorary Member. In addition to training numerous Latin American professionals in soils, the founder of our journal found in research a way of life. His charismatic personality made him leave countless friends in the Latin American countries where he lived.