Enforcement of immigration law would force undocu­mented workers to leave the countries. The impact on the labor force could be solved by policy research and technological advances, but must be accompanied by political and social measures.
•     Rising prices of energy, water, minerals and other natu­ral resources could affect outputs, costs and practices in all sectors of the food system. NAE agriculture uses large quantities of natural resources such as oil, water and phosphates, although there are regional differences. Decreasing availability and increasing competition for these resources boosts costs to heights that can have very negative impacts on agricultural production, pro­cessing, distribution, retail and purchasing. These ef­fects could be averted by a substantial reduction in the use of these resources thanks to improved management and new technological developments that increase use efficiency, and hence could mitigate the consequences of the current trend.
•     Climate change increasingly affects agriculture, which will require a wider and stronger spectrum of adapta­tion responses as well as efforts to reduce energy needs and emissions. Higher temperatures, more erratic pre­cipitation patterns  and increased risks  of droughts, particularly in the southwestern parts of the USA and in Europe, coupled with a northern shift of cropping zones, will lead to shifts in agricultural systems and pro­duction regions. Extreme events will severely challenge adaptive capacity. Existing AKST needs to be applied and new AKST developed.
•     Increased demands are being laid on agriculture for pro­viding energy and biomaterials. Bioenergy that includes the production of liquid fuels from biomass could meet some of the world's growing energy needs. It is unclear to what extent agriculture in NAE will become an en­ergy producer, and how much can be achieved from other renewable energy sources and conservation. The development of bioenergy will increase competition for land and water resources and could lead to higher food prices. Significant technological challenges still need to be overcome for the second-generation technologies to become commercially viable.

6. Emerging and ongoing trends as well as uncertain­ties in Knowledge, Science and Technology (KST) can be identified and are going to influence the way Ag­ricultural Knowledge Science and Technology (AKST) will be developed:
•     Innovation is a strategic element in economic compe­tition, but companies' investments depend on the ex­pected return; the level of private R&D varies from one country to the other. Large multinational companies are increasingly influencing priorities and investments in agricultural science and technology and are highly involved in agricultural extension. Some consider this trend as positive, others as negative.
•     The public funding of science and technology is start­ing to be insufficient to adequately address agricultural problems including satisfaction of consumer demands and the need for more sustainable natural resource man­agement. The decreasing proportion of publicly funded

AKST means that less AKST is available in the pub­lic domain thus limiting farmers' choices and restrict­ing research on issues such as food security and safety, sustainability, climate change. This also has a negative impact on partnerships with other regions of the world. Halting and reversing this negative trend depends on the will of governments. A reshaping of intellectual prop­erty rights and other regulatory frameworks could also modify this trend.
•     The interest for science and the number of students in science and technology in most of NAE is declining. The population of European researchers is aging, and students tend to turn away from science and technol­ogy, especially when it is research oriented. Measures are needed to bolster school education programs and public awareness in order to draw public recognition to the benefits of S&T. In North America, the number of students in "sustainability programs" is increasing, but few have agricultural backgrounds.
•     The present domination of NAE in generating formal knowledge could be challenged. Bigger R&D budgets and better R&D results in Asia are changing the rela­tionship of NAE research with that of the rest of the world. This could lead to more networking and in­creased competition among agriculture, industry and services.
•     The involvement of users in research definition and ex­ecution is challenging the traditional research approach. Innovation is a process that integrates various forms of research and the knowledge it creates in a wide range of patterns. Users are increasingly expressing needs which challenge the traditional disciplinary research approaches but may pave the way to a more inte­grated approach that some researchers find difficult and that, potentially, could be an obstacle to the required innovation.
•     The capacity of universities and public research orga­nizations, the private sector and the governments to make their economies competitive by defining research priorities jointly and funding R&D is uncertain. Collab­orative research is gaining in importance and measures could be taken to further promote it and improve the general R&D effort.

7. There are several plausible pathways and major dif­ferences in the AKST sets of drivers; much depends on the society's choices. The differences lead to alterna­tive pathways for AKST development:
•     Economic considerations and drivers could shape a globally-oriented "market-led AKST" wherein multina­tional corporations and other private sector actors play a major role. In that case, public policies would tend to be reactive, and consumer protection would amount to measures taken after serious problems have occurred. Policies would mainly focus on trade liberalization and assurances of a favorable platform for free competition. The common interests of transnational corporations and wealthier consumers would determine industrial, KST-and capital-intensive solutions marketed under private labels. "Market-led AKST" could effectively decrease hunger and poverty and improve nutrition and human