His flair for public speaking has catapulted him into the national spotlight in Costa Rica and afforded him fantastic international opportunities as well. It has also made him one of the busiest people in the crop protection industry. In the first six weeks of 2010, Román Macaya was elected to lead a global agrochemical association, campaigned for the presidency of Costa Rica, prepared to host Latin America Agrochemical Association’s (ALINA) annual meeting, and celebrated the birth of his fourth child, all while helping to direct Agroquimica Industrial RIMAC, the company where he is a shareholder and vice president.
Just listening to Macaya’s dizzying schedule would tire out most people (he took 15 international trips in 2009) but he seems to handle it in graceful stride because he firmly believes that all his endeavors are important – to his country, to the agrochemical industry, and to his family.
恰当的例子：像我们许多人一样，终生抱怨政府政策之后，马卡亚决定要么放弃他的无私咆哮，要么做一些事情来影响他祖国的变化。他的决定是竞选哥斯达黎加总统。
“Costa Rica is becoming more unequal and divided socially,” Macaya says. “We have always had a very large and stable middle class, and we are losing that. Economically, socially and politically, power is being centralized. Our quality of life is deteriorating, and I thought that it’s time to do something about the country.”
Although Macaya had never sought elected office before, he had campaigned against the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), a comprehensive trade agreement among Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and the US. He began to examine its impact on crop protection patents and soon discovered it would be more detrimental to the pharmaceutical industry, a blow that could encumber Costa Rica’s universal healthcare system.
他开始就 CAFTA 发表演讲，最终在全国范围内进行了大约 200 场演讲，并参加了电视辩论。这个问题使该国两极分化，并在选民中产生了分歧。 CAFTA最终被3.5%通过。
Although Macaya campaigned on the losing side, it bolstered his reputation and his confidence enough to seek the Citizen Action Party’s bid for the presidency. He didn’t win, but he became a party spokesman and campaigned on behalf of the party candidate. The incumbent National Libertarian Party ultimately prevailed in the February elections, but Macaya garnered a certain political savvy and behind-the-scenes understanding that can only come from the diversity of his political opportunities.
“To be a good lobbyist, it sure helps to understand politics and to have a first-hand view of what goes through a politician’s mind and the pressures that they are under,” he says.
这种第一手的视角，加上他之前担任 ALINA 总裁的经历，使他非常有资格领导已成为专利后作物保护公司 AgroCare 的杰出全球倡导者。
AgroCare 成立于 2008 年，是一个由 27 个国家的联盟 ALINA 创立的专利后生产商的全球联盟；欧洲作物护理协会 (ECCA)，代表 11 个国家/地区的公司；印度农药制造商和配方师协会 (PMFAI)；以及中国作物保护行业协会，该协会拥有 450 多个会员，生产的农药占中国制造的所有农药约 90%。
AgroCare 游说做出公共卫生和食品安全决策的国际组织，包括联合国粮食及农业组织、世界卫生组织和世界贸易协会，以及讨论国际监管标准、环境影响和残留限量的会议。
“AgroCare is an idea whose time had come,” Macaya says. “All over the world, there are discussions going on and decisions being made that affect the generic side of the agrochemical industry, dealing mainly with intellectual property and registration rules or requirements.”
The formal seat at the table was important, but it wasn’t entirely new, as ECCA and ALINA have already been welcomed at international meetings. But perhaps most valuable function of AgroCare now is its informal presence and its lobbying opportunities for the generic industry.
Macaya 说，在正式会议的幕后进行游说努力，试图尽可能提高知识产权法律和法规，以通过法律手段将仿制药排除在市场之外。然后，一旦这些法律文书不再起作用并且仿制药可以选择进入市场，那么就会有额外的游说努力使这些产品的注册变得尽可能困难。 AgroCare 尝试使用技术数据和科学证据来验证仿制药的适当性和安全性。
“All agrochemicals that are put on blacklists to be phased out are always post-patent products,” he says. “This correlation is perfect, and the explanation of why this correlation is perfect is usually because it is said that newer products are safer or have lower use rates. And that’s not really true. There are plenty of new products that have safety concerns, and they are nowhere near being questioned for safety.”
现在哥斯达黎加的总统选举已经结束，他过去担任 ALINA 的总统的步伐正在放缓，Macaya 将花更多时间与 AgroCare 一起旅行。
他的首要任务是继续与为粮农组织/世界卫生组织农药管理联席会议制定标准的国际人士进行讨论。在 2007 年开始的一系列会议之后，该标准仍未最终确定，但正在推进，国际作物生命和农业关怀等机构都提供了意见。
Macaya also plans to embark on a good-will campaign with the members of AgroCare’s founding entities to court opinions and give updates about what is happening in international regulatory environments.
“Right now, I’m here to listen to people with the help of a very capable team,” he says. “Our board of directors walk through a minefield of legal and regulatory issues that have very important consequences to our industry. We need feedback from companies that are members indirectly through their associations to make sure that we have the strongest arguments to defend generics and open markets for all agrochemicals.”