This report reviews major institutional developments and investment and human resource trends in public agricultural R&D in LAC from 1981 to 2006, drawing from a set of country briefs and a regional report for Central America prepared by the Agricultural Science and Technology Indicators (ASTI) initiative using comprehensive ASTI datasets derived from primary surveys for a 15-country sample conducted during 2007-08. These datasets have been linked with investment and human resources data collected in the region during the late 1990s, as well as with ASTI's global datasets, to provide a wider context for agricultural R&D investment trends over time and across other regions