Heterogeneity Poverty Scenarios as a Factor of Technology Demand in Latin America and the Caribbean

New basic factors are affecting the orientation of the research strategies of the CGIAR Centers and national research and transfer of technology institutions in the region (NARI ́s). Global macroeconomy changes imply a new set of rules that are followed by the economies of the region and a redefinition of the terms to face the problems of access to income and ways of overcoming food insecurity and poverty in the rural and periurban areas. The agriculture sectorial context contemplates critical aspects for the design of strategies to alleviate poverty: the phenomena of dual-modality of agrarian structures (co-existence of a peasant and entrepreneurial agriculture with the logical differences in the management of their resources); the important differences of the peasant sector itself and the growth of non agricultural rural employment at rates far superior that those of agriculture, which are decreasing in various countries. The wide scope of the heterogeneity of poverty demands that there be more ways to have access to employment or other forms of income. This supposedly implies the elaboration of typologies for the design of differentiated policies based on these forms, in particular, the different combinations of small land employment and rural agricultural and non agricultural employment with urban or peri-urban employment. Highly diversified technological demand to supply agro/silvicultural/pasture eco-regional scenarios, together with crops and cropping alternatives for intensive rural and peri-urban production of quality and innocuous products, requires institutional changes implying resources and technologies at the micro-entrepreneurial level. The development of a growing urban or peri-urban agriculture, demands appropriate sustainable technologies which should be considered in these strategies. These conditions imply a strong challenge for research at the CGIAR and NARI ́s level, which should identify and characterize said demand and replace it in the short term with adequate technological solutions.