In the 1990s, the opening of Argentine economy creates the proper conditions for the transformation of the Pampas agriculture: new technical objects and agents that altered farming practices and its relationship with territories.These changes are also clear in the central area of the Santa Fe province and in agricultural knowledge and information systems (AKIS). This region had experienced the consolidation of a territorial and regional AKIS during modernization 1960, whose configuration was operated by the State and joined by the private sector. This pattern gave “field agronomists” a vital role as legitimate mediators between research (conducted in regional government agencies) and farmers. The transformations of the ‘90s led to the fragmentation and differentiations of this regional AKIS, among which we find a system linked to extensive farming fostered by the suppliers of input material and innovative farmers whose non-territorial logic challenges the work of field agronomists. They watch their professional practices and work relations being modified and, aware of the weakening of their situation in the new extensive farming AKIS’s, they attempt to retain their position by managing new agricultural problems locally.This work intends to grasp the changes occurred in the practices of field agronomists in order to analyze the changes that impact on the profession agricultural engineers and provide elements of reflection for their training.
