The scenarios indicate that the option of using local knowledge is not sufficient to meet the demand for food, nutrition, health, and environmental development in an increasingly complex world. This would pose a serious threat to the region.

11. Scientific activity in LAC would change in the scenarios, both in terms of relevant actors (public or private sector, NGOs, and transnationals) and in terms of the sources of resources. In some scenarios, such as GO, OS, and TG, the role of the public sector in generating knowledge and technology would be reduced, and private stakeholders would play a more active role. Since the public sector is the one that has historically been responsible for guaranteeing a similar capacity for access to knowledge and technology to the most vulnerable social groups—while the private sector has not had this function (although it may engage in acts of corporate social responsibility), and NGOs do not really have the capacity to perform it—the generation of knowledge and technology to equalize adverse economic, social, and cultural conditions would not be guaranteed in these scenarios.

12. The scenarios indicate that agricultural knowledge, and science and technology applied to agriculture are necessary but not sufficient to help in achieving the purposes of the IAASTD, namely, to reduce hunger and poverty, and ensure sustainable development and food security. AKST systems are not sufficient in and of themselves, because other factors, such as governance, legal and regulatory institutions, international trade practices, and the like, are fundamental and more inclusive than science and technology in actually achieving sustainable development, which leads to a real reduction in hunger and the eradication of poverty. Based on the results of the analysis of these scenarios, in the subsequent chapters specific innovation policies oriented to achieving these objectives are described, in addition to sustainable development policies for vulnerable groups, to supplement the action of the AKST systems.

3.1 Objectives of the Chapter
This purpose of this chapter is to help answer the following question: “How can we reduce hunger and poverty, improve rural livelihoods, and facilitate equitable, environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable development through the generation of, access to, and use of agricultural knowledge, science, and technology?”
     With specific reference to Latin America and the Caribbean, these future alternatives for the development of this region can be used to propose nonprescriptive recommendations as to how science and technology can best contribute to this development.²¹
     To meet this objective, the chapter presents five scenarios on development of agriculture (sensu lato), agricultural production systems, and the knowledge, science and technology associated with them. The scenarios described are: (1) Global Orchestration; (2) Order from Strength;
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²¹ Proposals to this end are presented in Chapters 4 and 5.

(3) Adapting Mosaic; (4) TechnoGarden; and (5) Life as it is.
     The first four scenarios follow the Millennium Scenarios (Carpenter et al., 2005), and take the same name and broader macro-context or major premises used to analyze the relationships among the variables of the context closest to Latin America and the Caribbean and the variables that define the agricultural knowledge, science and technology systems and agricultural production systems in the region.
The fifth scenario was designed as a continuation into the future of these systems, with their influences and interaction, as they are today. In other words, it portrays a world based on the premise that the future is similar to the past, whereas the other scenarios use the present as a point of departure to explore future alternatives (that are not a mere continuation of the present). Therefore, the fifth scenario is what is usually called a “trend scenario” or “business as usual

.” Why use these scenarios?
The future is full of uncertainties for medium- and long-term policy makers, who need to understand what their worlds will look like in five to ten years from now, for decisionmaking purposes. In these times of extensive and speedy global intercommunications, the social, political, and economic contexts of societies change, and they are in turn modified with surprising speed. The task of understanding how these changes can alter the future and our societies is thus a difficult one and involves a great deal of uncertainty.      Building scenarios is a methodology used to help understand the future and, consequently to support decisionmaking on current policies and strategies. The scenarios are not linked to rigid mathematical formulas, unchangeable over time, but instead they offer a probable vision of the future and of the nature of complex phenomena (such as those considered in this paper) and of how that situation is arrived at on the basis of the present and a behavioral model of various types of social, economic, environmental and technological phenomena, among others, and their interaction. The scenarios make it possible to manage the uncertainty which necessarily characterizes the future, by creating plausible futures, or descriptions of what may occur in future, depending on the premises regarding selection of social stakeholders in relation to different macrovariables.

This vision of plausible futures is clearly subjective, but it is based on a critical analysis of existing information on the past and present and on methodologies—the scenarios— that lead to a systematic understanding of the future, or, better said, futures. The future could be like this, if it is not like that. This “could be” is reasonably credible here and now.

3.2 Conceptual Framework
Some concepts are fundamental for building the scenarios presented in this chapter. These concepts include the following.

The concept of the future. In reality, the future is something that does not exist and cannot be attained, because when you think that you have arrived at the future, in truth it is actually the present. Thus, when one studies the future, what is studied are the images or perceptions that can influence present activities of persons or of the organization that