Building capabilities to catch up with the biotechnological paradigm. The role of public policies in developing countries. Evidence from Latin American Agri-food Systems

GUTMAN GRACIELA; LAVARELLO PABLO

Mario Cimoli, Giovani Dosi and Annalisa Primi “Learning, knowledge and innovation: Policy Challenges for the 21th century” in press.

Año: 2008;

The main purpose of this paper is to analyze the implications of these hypotheses in Argentina, Brazil and Chile, considering the opportunities MB offers for the development of new local innovative capabilities and upgrading processes. These countries have shown important advances in the adoption of MB, the differences between them being associated with the specificities of their natural resource endowment, industrial structure and regulatory context.The methodological approach is in line with an ‘appreciative theory’, aiming to structure qualitative notions about the nature of biotechnological trajectories based on case studies, biotechnological enterprise surveys and science and technology databases (Bisang, Gutman, Lavarello, et al., 2006; CORFO, 2007; Da Silveira, Dal Pozo, and Assad, 2004; Niosi, 2006).In Section II we analyze, in a stylized way and for developed countries, the basis of the new scientific and technical knowledge, and new technological trajectories. Section III presents the local capabilities and the diffusion patterns of MB in the agri-food systems of the selected Latin-American countries. In the Conclusions, we briefly discuss some preliminary findings concerning the relationships between MB and industrial diversification and the upgrading processes associated with development.