the networks of interpersonal relationships are essential not only for the economic strategies of the households and their members, but also for other crucial aspects of human life, such as friendship, religion, leisure and sense of belonging. The members of a peasant or indigenous community share their own sociocultural system in which beliefs and norms complement institutional and social relationships and vice versa (Durston, 2002).
     In addition, in the micro, regional and national social system, the peasant occupies one of the bottom rungs on the social scale and therefore is subject to economic exploitation and social and political exclusion by the more powerful groups (Wolf, 1971), phenomena that are generally more intense when the peasants belong to ethnic groups with a history of domination by others. Moreover, peasant families have been diversifying their sources of subsistence, since scarcity of land, economic crisis and neoliberal policies have led to a situation in which this sector can no longer support itself solely from agricultural production. The response has been to seek employment off the farm (both men and women) and to migrate to the cities or industrialized countries (Deere, 2005), disarticulating rural communities and eroding the sociocultural cohesion of the rural milieu.
     When subsistence family-based agriculture directs its production basically to the market, uses wage labor, has some degree of productive specialization and has assets and capacities that give it some potential for accumulation, it assumes a position of transition to commercial forms. In this transition, externally strong pressures are brought to bear that alter its traditional economic and sociocultural foundations. In this transition, some changes take place in family life, some members of the family no longer participate in the productive activity, but instead dedicate themselves to studying or working in other independent activities, there is a greater link to the urban culture and gradually the traditional rural way of life is lost (Acosta and Rodríguez Fazzone, 2005).
     In contrast, the commercial agricultural system considers only the landowner as the agricultural entrepreneur and his function is primarily to organize the productive process and connect the property to the markets for inputs, financing, goods and labor. In addition, the producer and his family do not necessarily live on the property; most of their social and cultural activities are tied to the urban milieu; the enterprise uses, as the main labor force, temporary and/ or permanent labor; the size of the property is an important factor behind large productive surpluses; it uses a large amount of technology; and production is for market. The further it is from the characteristics of the family agricultural system, such a system is considered more modern and commercial and less traditional (Gómez, 2000).

1.6.2.5 Knowledge
A retrospective evaluation and analysis of the current situation of the role of agricultural knowledge, science and technology in the sustainable development of Latin America and the Caribbean must acknowledge that there is a wealth in the region beyond scientific knowledge as such. One must, therefore, reconstruct the historical-cultural diversity and

diversity of ways of knowing in the region and their influences on the evolution of science, as a preamble to an approach to the role, for example, of colonialism and neocolonialism, ethnicity and the ignored racial and cultural complications of the region, vis-à-vis the new and imposing paradigms such as globalization or global interdependence. In this context, it is evident that the region is broken into complexities, different bodies, memories, languages, histories, diversities and world views (Leff and Carabias, 1993; Possey, 1999; Maffi, 2001; Toledo, 2001, 2003; Toledo et al., 2001). This fragmentation, from a less uniform perspective, is considered in contrast to the assumption of a region seen from a reductionist perspective as a homogeneous mass and that advances on a symmetric front towards one or another scenario.
     Recognizing the importance of historical-cultural diversity for the purposes of gauging the role of knowledge, science and technology in the development policies of the region will enable us to vindicate and value aspects such as the experience of colonialism as a present and preponderant reality in Latin America. Colonialism in its diversity of nature and time intrinsically exists in the region, not only as a territorial phenomenon, imposed and invasive, but also as a legacy, reflected in a colonial and neocolonial attitude that predominates in many Latin American countries. This colonial mentality is one of the reasons why Latin America invests less than the world average today in research and development and does not value the rich traditional/indigenous and local knowledge.
     Colonialism has to date resulted in the suppression of local knowledge and wisdom for almost half a century and its legacy permeates the AKST system, restricting its creative and proactive use. The dominant AKST system has operated under the premise that scientific and technological spillover is the instrument that is going to best position the region and offer comparative advantages in today’s interdependent world. Yet on the other hand, Amartya Sen (2004, 2006) suggests the contrary effect of a colonial mentality rejecting western ideas. Sen argues that rejecting the globalization of ideas and practices because of the supposed threat of westernization is a mistaken approach that has played a regressive role in the colonial and neocolonial world. As he sees it, this rejection fosters parochial trends which, given global interactions, is not only counterproductive, but can cause non-western societies to place limits on themselves and may even torpedo the valuable resources that their own cultures and wisdom represent. It should be noted that for the indigenous peoples globalization (understood as the Euro-American colonial expansion and domination) is not new. Several studies by Lumbreras (1991), Grillo (1998), Lander (2000) and Quijano (2000) illustrate how the indigenous peoples of LAC engaged in a dialogue with the colonial world.
     Less in the realm of philosophy and more in that of epistemology, one can argue that LAC, even though it is a region with extraordinary resources in terms of world views, knowledge, wisdom and cultures has not taken advantage of the synergies that could be derived from the interaction between scientific knowledge and traditional/local knowledge and wisdom. This challenge puts forth, to the AKST