CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

This paper analyses the technology transference during Agrarian Modernization in Argentina through the study of a national state agency: National Agricultural Technology Institute (INTA), with a special focus on the social costs for excluded rural sectors. The analysis considers the content and perspective of the organization?s rural extension agenda about sectorial policies and socioeconomic transformations in rural areas. The operation of INTA?s is evaluated throughdocumentary sources and interviews with scientists and technicians, a review has been drafted on institutional directives, nationwide coordination of agricultural policies, and the experiences of INTA´s extension workers. The study problematizes the role of scientific and technological knowledge associated with green revolution in the current productive agricultural model, and its link with social, economic and environmental problems. Finally, there is a reflection on the extension and deepness of a commodity-centred science and the need to promote critical approaches that question its assumptions and the socio-environmental implications of this kind of interventions.