This paper aims at identifying, describing and analyzing the problems faced by Argentine rural extensionists in their practice. To this end, a survey was conducted, which was replied by 219 extensionists. Problems appearing repeatedly in the open replies were categorized using Atlas Ti software. After that, results were quantified, to which end the presence of a specific problem described by a category at least once was considered as presence of the variable in that survey. Next, using SPSS software the relationship between the most important problems identified and other variables were studied. It is concluded that (1) individualism, distrust and lack of farmers' associations, (2) problems to sell the produce and (3) lack of public support and of rural development policies are the most frequently problems mentioned by the participants.
Problems; rural development; rural extension; small farmers
