Agricultural Knowledge and Technology in Latin America and the Caribbean: Plausible Scenarios for Sustainable Development | 163

3.5.5 TechnoGarden
3.5.5.1 Implications for innovation policies
This scenario is triggered by a strong impact on climate change, together with social movements initiated in European countries in favor of diversification of agriculture, and geared to protecting the environmental services of ecosystems. Societies cope with their problems by anticipating and identifying specific technological solutions.

Agricultural diversification is already beginning in the megadiverse LAC countries (Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela. But not all of these countries initially have the capacity to conduct the research needed to obtain an adequate economic return from different environmental services. Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and Venezuela are in the best position to do so.

Environmental protection, an understanding of ecosystems and the environmental services they provide, the correction of anthropogenic aggression against nature, interaction among the different socio-economic, cultural, and environmental systems, and the creation of differentiated products by technological innovation (always with a low environmental impact), and new processes for diversification of agriculture constitute the main items on the technological agenda in this scenario.

This is a scenario that gives preference to the growing integration of knowledge of all kinds, whether formal or traditional. Thus, more than in any other scenario, this world is governed by knowledge, which at the same time strongly drives it, leading to the development of a new understanding of the systems and their integration.

It is also a world in which all social groups are covered by R&D, while at the same time the development of new products and processes intensifies, as does the anticipation of problems, especially in relation to the environment. Consequently, a large capacity for management and planning

 

of the development of know-how and technologies is also needed. Here the scenario differs from Adapting Mosaic, where the issue of the speed of technological development is not as important.

3.5.5.2 Implications for sustainable development policies
In the world of TechnoGarden, agriculture is only one part of the agroindustrial complexes that offer differentiated products based on technology as well as environmental protection processes. There are no more small-scale producers, as they were displaced to the cities.

This means that new institutions and institutional arrangements need to be created to support this new paradigm, but they are also required to monitor its benefits and risks for society. Countries that already have the capacity to generate technology and megadiverse countries, which are encountering environmental protection pressures and already have relevant laws, will find it easier to adapt to the new paradigm.

Unemployment is one of the major problems in this scenario. It will have a greater impact on countries whose current population is characterized by low levels of education, such as Peru, Bolivia, Honduras, and the Dominican Republic. In these countries especially, policies that will lead to the creation of new job opportunities can be implemented, in areas such as diversification of agriculture, enterprises related to the new agriculture-based products, or reductions in workload.

Despite the concern over the environment, new environmental problems emerge, as a result of the technological solutions tried out in this scenario. R&D needs to be oriented to achieving a systemic, in-depth understanding of
ecosystems, biological systems, and their interaction, and also to adequate monitoring of these ecosystems and the impact of technologies on them, which is already included in this scenario as a way of solving these problems.

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