Transformations of extension in the pampas and reconstruction of the profession of agricultural engineer.

This paper presents the perceptions and analyses by the extension workers of the South Western area of the Buenos Aires Province about transformations of their trades and skills. It provides a reflection on the disaggregation or diversification of this trade of extension and upon the evolution of the agricultural engineer profession, who has always sought in Argentina to organize on the model of learned professions (such as doctors, lawyers,...). Extension activity is at the heart of transformations occurring in the profession legitimating modes. After describing the context of the agricultural extension in Argentina, the first part presents the method used to produce data on the perceptions of the trade by extension workers themselves. The originality is here on an analysis which includes both public and private extension. A second part presents empirical data in the three workshops that has been organized in each of the three agricultural zones of South West Buenos Aires Province and intents to better understand issues at stake in rural and agricultural development in Argentina through the words of the extension workers. The conclusion transversely analyzes these materials for a global vision of the trade of extension and of the field of agricultural and rural development in Argentina. In particular transformations of legitimating modes of the profession of agricultural engineer are here analyzed as well as the importance of the relationship between the private and the public extension advice.