ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the sociopolitical context within which NGOs have emerged in agricultural development over the last thirty years in Latin America. It provides a basis for understanding their institutional characteristics, their perspective towards rural development, and the changing dimensions of their relationship with public institutions. The chapter deals with the influence such contextual factors have on the structure and functioning of the Agricultural Technology System. By the 1930s, pressures for technological innovation were increasing. Concerns over competitive advantage were intensified with the Depression of the 1930s as markets in the industrialized world collapsed. During the 1950s and 1960s, as public-sector agricultural development institutions began to consolidate, other currents of thought and action regarding development strategies were also emerging from within Latin American civil society.
