among others, in developing countries. The AKST systems in Latin America and the Caribbean must place emphasis on the development of research projects and on the training of personnel in centers of excellence so that the region could reduce the current technological gap and not remain on the margins of the major technological advances being made in other parts of the world. These efforts to promote cooperation must be aimed at strengthening the technical and scientific capacities of AKST stakeholders and thereby improve their impact on reducing poverty and hunger in the region.

11. Emerging technlogies. Channel research in new fields of knowledge (biotechnologies—molecular or other—and nanotechnogies, among others) towards the achievement of the goals of reducing poverty, hunger, malnutrition, human health and environmental conservation. Give priority in this process to the development of products based on these new technologies that benefit small producers (family businesses) by seeking to
maximize their social, economic and environmental impact while observing the precautionary principle. AKST systems must exploit the advantages of these emerging technologies while ensuring their biosecurity.

12. Biosecurity. Contribute to the strengthening of national
biosecurity committees. AKST systems must act effectively in the development of impact analysis and assessment of the potential risk of the products they research to ensure that their adoption would not cause problems for the environment or for consumers. AKST systems must ensure the biosecurity of the results of their research programs, based on the principle of precaution.

13. Organizational models. Create and/or strengthen AKST organizational models. Given the limitations of the organizational (structural) models of the various actors that comprise the AKST in many countries of Latin America and the Caribbean, one option would be to create new models or to strenghten the existing ones. Emphasis should be placed on sharing experiences in the adoption of different organizational models by the governments of the region and AKST stakeholders that enhance the efficiency and effectiveness (while preserving democracy and equity) of their
respective systems.

14. Models of governance. Strengthen and modernize management models. One of the main problems of AKST stakeholders is the absence of models for the management of their organizations. Since there are many successful experiences in AKST management in the region, these experiences should be shared among AKST stakeholders.

15. Interaction between AKST systems and the society. Promote interaction between AKST systems and consumers, movements and social organizations. Promote structures that facilitate dialogue between them and other social actors and AKST systems. There must be greater participation by social actors in the identification and especially in the selection of research priorities and in the evaluation of results.

 16. Intellectual property. Enactment of national legislation that recognizes collective intellectual property rights. National TRIPS legislation provides for the possibility of formulating strategies within the established multilateral framework. However, legal recourses may not be the most appropriate ones for protecting the knowledge that traditional (ethnic) communities have accumulated over centuries and must be adapted to their new purposes.

17. Teaching and training programs. Teaching curricula may be revised to include elements of AKST. For its part, AKST must also evolve to adapt to the transitions in formal education (from primary school to university) and in continuing education and training programs for all members of society. Advantage must also be taken of other types of training and information such as the communications media, which can be associated with this effort through special programs. In this way, it may be possible to preserve crops and agricultural knowledge and research by and for local and indigenous communities.

18. Inclusion of women in AKST systems. Promote increased participation by women in the management of organizational models, the generation and socialization of knowledge, and in the various development strategies. The participation of women in each aspect of AKST has increased over the past 15 years but is still very limited, despite the increasing numbers of women in leadership positions in both productive activities and producer associations and organizations.

19. Accountability to society. Impact studies must be carried out by AKSTs to account for investments and to demonstrate to society the importance and impact of the products they generate. These studies should include an analysis of all the impacts of their products (economic, social, environmental and others) together with a program to communicate their results that is geared to the various stakeholders (actors—individual and collective—have very different levels of training and access to information).

20. Formulation of public policies. AKSTs should participate proactively in the formulation of public policies related both to the system itself and to the policies supporting the system. AKST stakeholders, including publicly funded national agricultural research institutes, have traditionally had little real participation in the preparation of the legal framework in which they operate
(biosecurity and intellectual property legislation, financing of research and development, credit policies, etc.). Generally speaking, their impact on public policies is limited to submitting reports with the results of their research.

4.1 Conceptual Framework

For purposes of the IAASTD, the agricultural production systems in Latin America have been classified as follows (Chapter 1):
1. Traditional/indigenous production systems;
2. Conventional/agroindustrial production systems;
3. Agroecological production systems.