techniques, which in developed countries is reflected in the
decrease in negative effects on the environment. Biotechnology
becomes the basis for genetic improvement projects; the
use of conventional improvement systems moves to second
place. Nanotechnology in turn is used successfully for the
first time in intelligent systems for monitoring crops and
livestock and food processing systems. These systems rely
on the use of electronic nano-sensors based on the characterization
of DNA, which are especially designed to detect
threats to biosafety or biosecurity in raw materials or processed
foods.
Nanotechnology is also used to develop systems for
tracing origin and preservation of identity. These systems
are sold to poor countries that want to export their raw materials
to rich countries and so must comply with the identity
preservation requirements for exports. This technology
is also used to generate strict control protocols for biosecurity
and biosafety in international transactions.
Biotechnology is also used to produce plant biomass
adapted to the needs of agroindustry, producers, and consumers
in LAC countries in a better economic situation.
Moreover, other sources of energy cheaper than biofuels begin
to be developed and threaten to take over their market
share. These advances are realized in most cases by large
transnationals that export their know-how to less developed
countries.
3.4.2.2.2 AKST systems
Scientific activity, virtually abandoned in LAC countries, is
left on its own. In many countries the scarce resources of the
people encourage the formation of markets for traditional
products. For instance, expensive medicines manufactured
by international laboratories are replaced by active principals
obtained directly from plant biodiversity. However,
since there is no interaction between formal and traditional
knowledge, the systematization of the latter and its incorporation
in formal systems are reduced. The activity of generating
know-how and technology is left to the developed
countries outside LAC.
The capacity to incorporate advances in formal knowledge
is in the hands of large transnational corporations,
because there are actually no public or private research institutions
or universities that perform this work effectively.
At the outset of the period there is a fleeting attempt to
incorporate traditional know-how into efforts to generate
agricultural products.
R&D resources come from major transnational corporations,
which tend to focus on their short-term interests
and the needs of markets outside the region. There are virtually
no other sources of funds to sustain sizeable investments
in R&D. The focus of the large corporations is on the
competitiveness of commodities and biosecurity protocols.
These are produced with technologies generated in other
countries, which are directly applied or adapted to the conditions
of LAC and exported to wealthier countries outside
the region.
Almost all the R&D produced by large corporations is
directed to improving successful products, such as transgenic
varieties, or to testing new products, to serve external and
internal markets. For the R&D activities of these corporations,
the countries in the region have a comparative advantage
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in that they can explore the environment without facing
protests from environmentalist organizations, taxes are low,
and there are generally few restrictions to such exploration.
Locally important food crops, such as beans and yucca, are
not the subjects of the R&D done by these corporations.
However, the technologies generated by the corporations
are not the best suited to the diverse needs of the countries
of the region, either in terms of sustainable development, or
their culture or production conditions.
3.4.2.2.3 Agricultural production systems
The slow economic growth of the region makes it much
more difficult to incorporate know-how into agriculture,
and especially as required for the most vulnerable production
systems. Moreover, the large corporations no longer
operate as organizations dedicated to a broad sector of activity,
such as production of inputs, for example, but instead
they operate as large, well-coordinated production chains,
ranging from production to sale of these same inputs, including
technology, and including the production and sale
of agricultural products. Know-how is automatically incorporated
into these chains as part of the whole process.
Production systems that do not participate in these
chains do not have an adequate supply of technology to
solve the problems of agricultural pests and diseases or to
adapt to higher temperatures, nor do they have the resources
to incorporate innovations when there are a few available.
The vast majority of LAC countries lose a great deal of
their competitive capacity on external markets, due to the
following factors:
• The rich countries become increasingly closed to guarantee
the best markets to their own agricultural producers;
• The rapid change in the technological base of economic
development, increasingly more dependent on expensive
technologies, such as biotechnology and nanotechnology,
information sciences, geomantics, and on their
incorporation, which are not affordable for all countries
of the region;
• The creation of new products with these technologies
incorporated into them, that are not dependent on the
use of commodities—the principal exports of LAC,
which have experienced a sharp drop in international
prices;
• The limited capacity of the region to maintain agriculture
free of pollutants, diseases and pests.
Few LAC countries, especially the largest ones, sell their agricultural
production on external markets. In all the LAC
countries, the domestic market is an important target for
agriculture. For most of the countries, that market is virtually
the only market on which the large corporations participate
as chains. Small-scale vulnerable producers supply the
poor on local markets, or sustain themselves. It is increasingly
more difficult for these producers to become part of
production chains, due to their reduced capacity to satisfy
certification and biosecurity and biosafety requirements.
In view of the ongoing poverty crisis and social and productive
vulnerability, the stakeholders of vulnerable production
systems are reliant on assistance to mitigate social and
natural emergencies.
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