ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses some of the issues from a Latin American perspective and attempts to draw some general policy implications. It explains attention to the importance of international and national efforts that have been made in the creation and development of National Research Institutes. The chapter examines the history of technological change in Latin American agriculture. It explores several main historical phases, each with a different institutional mechanism by means of which the productive structure had access to technical innovations and which, for the most part, originated in the developed world. The chapter provides a description and analysis of the second historical phase. It describes the development of National Research Institutes and interprets the social forces that conditioned their impact on agricultural production. The chapter also explains a tentative interpretation of the social and economic forces that led to the creation of the research institutes and those that have eroded their original position and mandate.
