With regard to the gender dimension, it is clear that the modernization of the agricultural sector provoked changes in labor relations both for men and women. Rural women have a greater presence in the production chains of fresh and processed foods and in other agricultural export products. However, their working conditions remain precarious (Farah, 2004) except in the case of exporting firms that have been certified internationally.

In general terms, public policy in Latin American countries has prioritized economic growth as a strategy for overcoming poverty in all its manifestations. This economicist vision has ignored the complexity of the situation of rural populations, failing to consider that poverty is multidimensional and cannot be resolved with one-dimensional strategies (Sen, 2000).

2.5.5 On the competitiveness of chains and conglomerates, and on territorial development
The AKST system has had a significant impact on the competitiveness of production chains over the period analyzed. The region’s growing agricultural output has largely been the result of the technological development promoted by the AKST system (Regúnaga et al., 2003). This has occurred despite the fact that, as previously mentioned, the system did not begin to address production chains as a whole until the middle of the 20th century, focusing before that on specific projects due to the region’s considerable technological backwardness.

For several decades, research efforts pursued productivity without taking into consideration the social aspects of a given territory. The populations historically and culturally linked to these territories were not adequately inserted into the technological changes underway, often not only for cultural reasons but also for economic and financial ones. This lack of a holistic vision of the system has produced negative

externalities such as social exclusion and the degradation of natural resources (Molina, 1980; Trucco, 2004).

Although agricultural R&D began to be implemented through individual projects a few decades ago, it was not until the end of the 1990s that strategies were developed to address the requirements of the production chain as a whole. An example is Argentina’s Multi-annual National Science and Technology Plan (SECYT, 1997), which used the concept of the production chain to design its technology policy and worked with this unit of analysis in pursuit of the greater competitiveness of the whole.

In recent years, the development and expansion of the concept of agribusiness (Davis and Goldberg, 1957) and the implications of the new institutional economy for the competitiveness of production chains (Zylbersztajn, 2001) have introduced an institutional and organizational framework that has improved the productivity and competitiveness of chains and conglomerates.

This new vision of agribusiness is encouraging discussion on ways of ensuring a more harmonious and balanced development of production chains and their stakeholders. The concept, however, is being incorporated mainly in the more competitive chains, leaving aside the weaker ones or those whose stakeholders have fewer opportunities to make them heard.

Consequently, this new way of integrating technological development with institutional aspects has limited importance for the communities linked to a territory, since there is less interest, knowledge, or efforts on the part of the AKST system to improve their conditions of relative development.

In this regard, non-governmental organizations committed to social and territorial development, as well as certain specific institutions, plays an important role in promoting better conditions for local populations with respect for their culture (Feito, 2005).