erate and interact with each other and with the broader environment.

          These developments have brought about new requirements regarding the attitudes and communication processes needed to facilitate dialogue and linkages between, on the one hand, those who generate technological knowledge and innovation and, on the other, those responsible for other links or factors indispensable to the development, productivity, and competitiveness of the production chain or watershed— suppliers, producers, traders, and financiers, as well as officials in charge of infrastructure, public policies, and institutions, and those in charge of information and communication mechanisms aimed at enhancing participatory development.

          It is also necessary to improve the efficacy and efficiency of universities and other existing research, development, and technology transfer institutions. This calls for the creation of formal and informal mechanisms for interaction, including service contracts between such institutions and private sector users. In that respect, special programs and mechanisms have already been established to promote and facilitate linkages between agricultural research bodies and farmers.¹⁶

          For the past several decades, moreover, private enterprise has become actively involved in the AKST system and has assumed an increasingly important role in the development of certain innovations (such as genetic products, machinery, and agrochemicals) and their dissemination among producers through the sale of inputs or services. As a result, public research institutions find themselves in the dilemma of either (1) competing, (2) withdrawing from the field and focusing their efforts on developing other innovations, or (3) attempting to cooperate on joint strategies. In other words, public AKST institutions face the challenge but also the opportunity of working with private AKST institutions on projects of mutual interest. This decision has strategic political implications that must be considered. It will test governments’ vision and their willingness to generate new game rules, or standards, for public-private partnerships, in
the interest of safeguarding the interests of society.

          Another challenge facing AKST institutions in LAC is to take advantage of the enormous potential offered by new fields of knowledge such as biotechnology and nanotechnology, which are being incorporated at a different pace by the countries of the region.¹⁷

_____________________

¹⁶ For example, INTA in Argentina has implemented a technology transfer program, while Brazil’s EMBRAPA and Chile’s INIA have special programs in their regional centers. In Mexico, INIFAP has established the Cattle Ranchers’ Technology Validation and Transfer Groups, the Experimental Farmers, and the MOCAT groups. For its part, civil society has created the Patronatos and the Produce Foundations to support agricultural and livestock research. In Bolivia, SIBTA has moved toward a model in which a good deal of technological innovations is carried out by private foundations that obtain financial support from the Government’s budget.
¹⁷ For example, biotechnology is not limited to the world of genetic engineering (DNA). There have been other agronomic efforts in this field, focused on integrated pest and disease management or the integrated management of agroecosys-

          Although such developments may offer interesting alternatives related to people’s well-being and quality of life, the level of investment required, together with patent- and copyright issues, could become insurmountable obstacles to taking advantage of their potential to benefit the region’s poor. New developments are being used mostly by industry and the service sector, where users have purchasing power and the interests of investors are protected by intellectual property rights and patents. One of the greatest challenges facing small- and medium-sized countries in LAC is to review, update, and reinforce mechanisms and processes for regional cooperation in this area. Tables 2.2 and 2.3 summarize the factors that condition AKST’s potential to develop more productive, sustainable, and equitable systems. They also summarize AKST’s most significant impacts in Latin America.

2.1.6 Interactions between organizations and knowledge networks
In the early 1950s, formal national research organizations would transfer their technological innovations through public extension services and private agents. They did so with varying degrees of success, depending on the type of crop, type of producer, or agroecological area. The interaction between science, on one hand, and local technology and knowledge systems on the other, tended to be one way, frequently leading to the latter being undervalued.

          Starting roughly around the 1980s, and varying from country to country, a reappraisal was made of the relations between organizations and knowledge networks. Two reasons accounted for this: the need to provide agile and innovative responses to the changing environment; and the redefinition of the role of public and private actors in agricultural research and technological innovation.

          Although the ways in which networks have developed in the different countries display major differences, some important changes that have occurred in the last 25 years can be identified across the board:

          In many countries, the relative importance of government investment in agricultural research declined, although it continued in the universities, increasingly relying on resources from the productive sector.

          The role of extension services has been redefined for budgetary reasons and due to the restructuring of the state’s role in agriculture. As a result, some extension tasks have been privatized and different types of civil society associations and organizations have intervened more actively in the
provision of technical support.

          In general, private or non-governmental actors have taken a more active role in the generation, validation, and transfer of agricultural technology, partly on the initiative of agroindustrial firms and providers of seeds and inputs, but

_________________________________________________

tems. Biotechnology includes knowledge and management of soil microorganisms, different types of compost, green manures, forage crops, multiple-crop systems, biocultures, rhizosphere microbial cultures, efficient microorganisms, and bacteria that promote growth in plants and induce systemic resistance. These are just some examples that expand the horizons of biotechnology, and should be given equal consideration in government financing policies (León et al., 2004).