(d)  Open debate about subsidies to protect small hold­ers versus investments along with AKST to enhance their production and market capacities.
(e)   Facilitation of other employment options for rural landless labor in areas where capital substitution for labor occurs.
(f)   Increasing recognition of the role of complementary investments in rural and meso- or macro-variables like rural infrastructure, rural banks, post-harvest systems, and transport, that enable more effective generation and utilization of agricultural knowl­edge and technologies, and more non-farm rural employment.
(g)  Application of agricultural knowledge and tech­nologies to complement social security systems or targeted food distribution systems in areas of abject poverty,
(h) Increasing partnerships between public AKST or­ganizations and CSOs—for innovation and for spe­cific monitoring of local agroecological systems,
(i)   More  attention from national and international policy circles to institutional arrangements that re­strict poor people's (especially women's) access to knowledge and technologies, and appropriate cor­rective measures from local AKST to enable utiliza­tion of knowledge that can enhance the income and well-being of the poor.
•     Improving nutrition, health and rural livelihoods:
(a)  Increasing investments in AKST for a diverse range of crops/commodities/livestock, forestry and aqua-culture systems,
(b)  Increasing food safety and standards, and adop­tion of sanitary and phyto-sanitary systems that en­able rather than distort trade in agricultural/food products.
(c)   Formal AKST investments in alternative methods of production (e.g., organic) that are more environ­mentally friendly.
(d)  Increasing interactions and partnerships in formal AKST, with a wide range of organizations involved in research, development, finance, transport, stor­age, packaging and other products or services, in public, private or civil society sectors. (e)   Substitution of all resource degrading and resource depleting   inputs/chemicals/pesticides,   with   new technologies or production practices such as bio-

technology or IPM, wherever all required safety regulations are in place and adequate monitoring mechanisms are available.
(f)   Integration of AKST with specific programs that address child malnutrition or other targeted nu­trition programs—biofortified rice, vegetables, or­ganic grain, high-protein local foods, preserved or processed foods, for example.
•     Environmental sustainability:
(a)  Improved AKST assessment methods and systems of monitoring and evaluation that can forewarn of environmental consequences.
(b)  Increased domestic and global investments in AKST organizations for research on the implications of climate change for agriculture, and for technologies for adaptation and mitigation.
(c)   Increased investments in cost sharing schemes for environmental services provision—enabled by re­source-conserving technologies in developing coun­tries—especially in parts of the Pacific islands and South Asia.
(d)  Promotion of industrial and environmental biotech­nology, including biofuels and bioplastics that can enable both remediation of the environment and increase rural non-farm employment.
(e)   Greater development of partnerships and interna­tional agreements in AKST that can promote re­gional and global networks for specific ecosystems and recognize ways to minimize tradeoffs between the environmental and production imperatives of each agroecological system.

Current trends in many developing ESAP countries reveal that the capacities to make such investments or partnerships in AKST and the political willingness to make the choices (subsidies vs. investments, IPR vs. open source knowledge systems) to enable better utilization of AKST by the poor are limited. The capacity of the agriculture sector and AKST to reduce hunger and poverty and enhance environmental sustainability depends significantly on reforms within the sector, as well as on several other macroeconomic variables and political processes. AKST in ESAP needs significant ca­pacity development to learn from and work with a wide range of organizations and processes, in order to enable in­novation for development.