Over time science as a human activity began to be viewed more critically as the increasing reliance on science and technology to drive national economic growth progressively revealed also the technical risks of scientific development. This view resulted in a growing public mistrust in some countries concerning the effectiveness of science as the unqualified promoter of the public good, (Nelkin, 1975; Calvora, 1988; Gieryn, 1995; BAAS, 1999) although in others, such as Sweden, public confidence in science has remained high. For example, public concerns, themselves informed by science, surfaced for instance concerning the impact of synthetic chemicals on other species, human health and the environment. As these issues began to figure more strongly in agricultural and food science research priorities (Byerlee and Alex, 1998) science began to occupy an ambiguous position as a supplier of the objective knowledge needed to generate new kinds of formal knowledge and technology as well as that needed to identify and measure risks and the evidence of harm that applications of knowledge and technology might cause in particular conditions of use; science as a human activity thus became implicated in societal controversies (Nash, 1989; Brimblecombe and Pfister, 1993; Gottlieb, 1993; Sale, 1993; Shiva, 2000; Maathai, 2003). It experienced both optimistic support from the public about its potential social utility and loss of credibility when it was found in specific instances to have produced unintended or undesirable results. At the same time, the lines between public good science, not-for-profit science and science carried out for commercial gain began to blur as the public sector in many countries began to yield its role as a direct supplier and the private commercial sector emerged as a major source of funding for agricultural science and technology development.

     The imbalance between science investments, infrastructures and staffing in OECD countries compared to tropical countries (UNESCO, 1993; Annerstedt, 1994) for much of the period meant that "science's contract with society" for the goals of international agricultural development and sustainability had to be mobilized with the support of OECD country electorates. That is, the resources had to be mobilized by appeals to values and interests of people distanced from those experiencing the effects. This process stimulated the growth of civil society and NGOs working on international development and the introduction of the broader concerns of citizens into the science agenda. As science institutions by the 1990s in the poorest developing countries became heavily dependent on foreign funding and foreign training opportunities the concerns of donors tended to drive their agendas. Other countries such as Brazil, South Africa, China and India identified S&T as key drivers of their own economic development while giving relatively lower attention specifically to the agricultural sciences. Private commercial investment in science tended to concentrate on technologies such as food preservation and processing, pest control technologies, feed stuffs, veterinary products and more recently also on transgenic crops for which profits could be more easily captured; under competitive commercial pressures the concerns of better-off consumers and urban residents also began to influence the AKST agenda.

     As a consequence of these complex interweaving trends, public support for international agricultural development

and sustainability was and remains peculiarly susceptible to crises (EC, 2001; 2005). These include crises in intensive agricultures, in the public mind in Europe associated with "the silent spring" (Carson, 1962) or diseases such as BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy-"mad cow disease") and more recently the risks of the spread of avian flu to the intensive poultry industries of Europe and beyond. The actual or potential human health consequences provided an extra emotional dimension. Environmental crises, such as the drying of Lake Aral through diversion of its waters to feed the Soviet Union's cotton farming or the unsustainable use of surface and groundwater in irrigated farming in the southwest of the United States or in the Punjab or crises of acute hunger and starvation, drought or flooding similarly brought the agricultural sciences into question. Fear of the unknown and suspicion of the concentration of ownership in commodity trading, food industries and input supply (Tallontire and Vorley, 2005) and increasing private control over new opportunities in agriculture arising from advances within science (WRI/UNEP/WBCSD, 2002) also fed into public concerns. The first generation technologies resulting from genomics e.g., raised concerns about the risks of increased spread of known allergens, toxins or other harmful compounds, and horizontal gene transfer particularly of antibiotic-resistant genes and unintended effects (Ruan and Sonnino, 2006). An important consequence is that demand has grown for stronger accountability, stricter regulation and publicly funded evaluation systems to determine objectively the benefits of new sciences and technologies.

     Today in many industrialized countries an increasing percentage of the funding for university science comes from private commercial sources. It tends to be concentrated in areas of commercial interest or in advanced sciences such as satellite imaging, nanotechnologies and genomics rather than in applications deeply informed by knowledge of farming practice and ecological contexts. License agreements with universities may include a benefit sharing mechanism that releases funds for public interest research, but product development, especially the trials needed to satisfy regulatory authorities, is expensive and companies (as well as universities) need to recover costs. Hence a condition of funding is that the source of funds often determines who is assigned first patent rights on faculty research results. In some cases the right to publication and the uninhibited exchange of information among scholars are also restricted. The assumption under these arrangements that scientific knowledge is a private good changes radically the relationships within the scientific community and between that community and its diverse partners

2.1.4 Technology and innovation processes

The relationship between technology and innovation has remained a matter of debate throughout the period under review. The analysis by scholars around the world of literally thousands of empirical studies of the processes that have led to changes in practice and technology (not only in agriculture but in related sectors such as health) over time has forced acceptance that innovation requires much more than a new technology, practice, or idea and that not all change is innovation. Innovation processes have been