Public-private partnerships are a new way of carrying out research and development (R&D) in Latin America's agricultural sector. These partnerships spur innovation for agricultural development and have various advantages over other institutional arrangements fostering R&D. This report summarizes the experiences of a research project that analyzed 125 public-private research partnerships (PPPs) in 12 Latin American countries. The analysis indicates that several types of partnerships have emerged in response to the various needs of the different partners.

The study focuses on how levels of innovation, measured by complexity and investments requirements of the adopted technologies, relates to innovative behavior and complying with social responsibility practices, as two indicators of the farmer's behavior towards innovation. A typology of farmers with different technological
levels was constructed based on multivariate techniques, according to the adoption of seven technologies. The main objective of the study was to relate SR and innovative behavior to the technology clusters

On-farm agricultural innovation through incorporation of new technologies and practices requires access to resources such as knowledge, financial resources, training, and even emotional support, all of which require the support of different actors such as peers, advisors, and researchers. The literature has explored the support networks that farmers use and the overall importance ranking of different support actors, but it has not looked in detail at how these networks may differ for different farmers.