Key Messages
1. The objectives of AKST policies are (1) to reduce hunger and poverty, (2) to improve living standards and health for rural people, and (3) to promote development that is economically, socially and environmentally sustainable. To achieve these objectives, policies must move beyond previous models, in particular the one that made the market the central mechanism for allocating and regulating resources and that has had the effect of exacerbating economic and cultural poverty, hunger and inequality.

2. This situation creates the challenge of formulating alternative policies that take account of the economic, social, cultural and ecological heterogeneity that prevails in the various countries of LAC, without ignoring the new situation generated by trade liberalization and economic deregulation. The prerequisites for implementing these policies are: (1) to ensure a stable macroeconomic framework; (2) to establish strategic guidelines that will give priority to expanding and allocating public resources for the AKST system, strengthening the sustainable output capacity of small productive units, with a gender focus, so as to guarantee countries’ food security and sovereignty; (3) institutional designs that will decentralize implementation of the strategy, with close involvement of local stakeholders, recognizing and strengthening their culture; (4) permanent mechanisms for monitoring and evaluating the impact of policies so that the instruments used can be reformulated; and (5) designing suitable mechanisms for financing the various policies.

3. The AKST policies proposed here are targeted essentially at alleviating poverty and hunger, reducing inequality, and promoting sustainable development with an emphasis on small-scale peasant/indigenous agriculture and agroecology (treated in its broad sense). To this end, policies must move beyond the models used since the 1990s, which were based on liberal approaches in which markets were the central mechanisms for allocating and regulating resources, and which have merely served to increase rural poverty and hunger.

4. A policy of food security and sovereignty that embraces production, the availability of food, and the development of capacities. The idea is to take policy measures that go beyond mere subsistence and will bring improve the lives of the poor, by giving them sustainable access to productive resources (land, water, biodiversity, credit) with a focus on gender and equality. In this context, we propose a policy that will help restore and strengthen local culture and knowledge in the management of productive and natural resources. This calls for intercultural policy instruments that will support the efforts of small farmers to achieve integral development and will strengthen their productive capacities, taking into account the worldview and
the heterogeneity of these people.

5. A policy for sustainable management of natural resources. Such a policy must have instruments for territorial planning and the identification of ecological and economic

zones as the basis for establishing rules for the use of land, ranging from conservation to intensive farming, with a view to creating a mosaic of agroecosystems.

6. Policies to encourage and support the transition from conventional and peasant/indigenous farming systems to models of sustainable agriculture. Policy instruments should be designed for each stage of this transition: reducing industrial inputs, making efficient use of energy, enhancing diversification, and promoting agroecological management. Incentives and support measures should seek to maintain the productive efficiency and competitiveness of agricultural systems, and to establish the objectives of each stage and the means for verifying progress.

7. A policy of participation and democratization that will include now-excluded sectors in defining and implementing the AKST agenda. We propose policy instruments that will increase these stakeholders’ access to information, help them build or strengthen their capacities to take part in decision making, and provide institutional forums for deliberation and decision. Under these conditions, cooperative networks could be a prime instrument for coordinating the efforts of public and private stakeholders at the local, regional, national and international levels, so as to produce collective benefits that will take account of specific interests.

8. A policy for access to genetic resources and the equitable distribution of the benefits they generate. We propose as a policy instrument the formulation of legal frameworks that will guarantee local communities’ access to genetic resources and regulate access for other players. Sui generis legal frameworks will also be defined to promote the recognition of traditional knowledge associated with these genetic resources, and the equitable distribution of their benefits among the communities that are the custodians of these resources.

9. A policy that prevents the use of food crops for purposes other than food in countries that are centers of origin of phytogenetic diversity. In other regions, the instruments will be of a regulatory nature. The instruments for this policy will include a precautionary legal framework where the granting of licenses will be preceded by a case-by-case evaluation of the social, environmental, cultural and food safety risk.

10. Intercultural education policies to promote the building and development of local capacities and skills. The idea is to facilitate rural people’s access to labor markets through policy instruments such as communityoriented educational reform that provides for intercultural and multilingual instruction, the training of specialized teachers, the development of adequate physical and IT infrastructure, scholarships for low-income students, training programs and skills development.

11. The availability of financial services is an essential factor of support for activating the AKST system to meet development and sustainability goals. In LAC as