ABSTRACT

Guayule is a rubber-producing shrub native to the Chihuahuan Desert. In Mexico the Guayule Project was being structured and around 1977 it became a Research and Development Project, integrating pilot and product development activities. Technology Assessment (TA) has gradually evolved from simple cost/benefit analyses to sophisticated means for policy analysis. TA is a consequence of the technological development of the increasingly rapid incorporation of new technologies into society and of the direct and indirect impacts which this causes. TA has emerged, to a great extent, due to the increase in the society-technology-environment interactions. A TA is a systematic study of the interactions between a specific technology and society. The sustainability of the resources for development will be one of the principal challenges and will demand the trying out of new methodological approaches which, like TA, take science and technology into the sphere of public policies and decisions.