Decree 462/2025 of the National Executive Bran It assumes powers not delegated by the “Base Law” therefore does not conform to the constitutional requirements established by the National Constitution.
Law 27,742 (Base Law) included a list of organisms expressly excluded from any intervention or transformation. The INTA appears on that list, together with universities, organs of the Judiciary and Legislative, the CONICET and other entities. In spite of this, Decree 462/2025 provides the conversion of INTA into a “decentralized body” under the orbit of the Ministry of Economy, dissolves its Board of Directors and its regional councils and transfers the conduction to an official with the range of secretary, appointed by the Executive.
Although it is not formally called “intervention”, this concentration of power in a single official, without counterweights, It is functionally equivalent to an interventionand contradicts the explicit mandate of Congress.
In addition, the decree repeals article 1 of Law 25,641, which established the Entaquía del INTA and its exclusive support to its Organic Law. Modifying this special law without Congress intervention constitutes an excess in the use of delegated powers. There is no basis for necessity or urgency that enables this alteration of the regulatory framework.
Ignorance of knowledge as strategic input. Beyond the legal framework, Decree 462/2025 expresses A deep misunderstanding about what knowledge is, how it occurs and what institutional conditions are required to take value. This implies that in addition to generating it, it is necessary to manage, apply and appropriate in the varied possible forms. That is, have an impact.
The decree proposes a recentralization of INTA under a logic that prioritizes accounting efficiency and the reduction of collegiate structures. However, knowledge institutions They cannot be organized or managed as vertical bureaucratic entities. Its operation depends on distributed structures, technical deliberation and solid territorial links.
Knowledge is not a neutral, linear, or homogeneous, or exogenous input. Its value lies in its appropriateness and its ability to be transformed by specific actors into specific contexts.
Eliminating the mechanisms that ensure their territorial roots articulate technical knowledge, territorial demands and institutional decisions, such as the Board of Directors, the Regional Councils and collegiate leadership, does not modernize: disarms.
Article 63 of the Decree, which creates an “technical advice ad honorem”, does not compensate for that loss: It is a figure without operational capacity or institutional anchor, which does not articulate with the territory or with the relevant actors of the ecosystem.
Disassemble participatory architecture. Since its creation by Decree-Law 21.680/56, INTA has sustained a plural governance structure, reinforced by Decree 287/1986, which institutionalized the National Council and the Regional Councils. These spaces guaranteed the participation of provinces, productive entities, universities, public bodies and technical referents in the definition of policies and priorities.
The repeal of articles 1 to 7 and 10 to 15 of decree 287/1986 Destroy that architecture without proposing equivalent alternatives. It’s not about advisory advice: They were decision bodieswhich defined strategies, assigned resources and ensured the interaction between technical knowledge, territory and productive agendas.
The elimination of these mechanisms breaks the capacity of the state of articulating policies with technical basis and social legitimacy.
Replace collective intelligence with administrative verticalism Do not correct failures: it deepens them.
BUDGET SUBJECTION: A structural restriction and a missing opportunity
INTA does not upheavical for inefficiency, but because He never had full access to the resources that correspond to him by law. Since 1956, the agency had to have a National Agricultural Technology Fundconceived as a stable financing instrument. However, That fund was never really made available to INTA: resources are deposited in accounts under the control of the national treasure, without operational access by the Institute.
Since 2002, its sources of financing, reorient to 0.45% of the CIF value of imports and 31.3% of the statistics rate, reaffirmed by law again. But the assigned budget (approved or not by Congress) remained much smaller than collected, and The funds that bear the name of the INTA cannot be managed by the body itself.
At the end of 2024, the Fund accumulated more than $ 450,000 million, projected above $ 600,000 million in 2025. These resources remain immobilized, without traceability, or direct execution.
The transformation of INTA into a decentralized organism Do not correct this distortion: institutionalizes.
The most serious thing is that This National Agricultural Technology Fund, today inactive, could be transformed into a strategic toolin the style of patrimonial funds (endowments) that finance universities such as Harvard or scientific centers such as Wellroom Trust. Reference international and academic organizations use these mechanisms to guarantee stability, autonomy and long -term planning. Instead of moving towards that solution, the decree reinforces a logic that blocks development instead of enabling it.
Knowledge as strategic infrastructure
INTA is not one more distribution. It is an institution that has achieved, with limited resources, to sustain research, extension, training of human resources and useful knowledge production. Its social return rates, estimated between 20% and 28% per year, and its profit/cost ratio greater than 10, They show that the autarkic model is economically efficient and socially profitable.
Transforming its cumulative fund into a productive heritage, managed with technical criteria, is a valid option. But for this an autonomous institutional framework is needed, not an administrative recentralization.
Reduce INTA to an office subordinated to the Executive means missing that opportunity.
Conclusion: The decree is invalid – an urgent and necessary decision.
Decree 462/2025 violates the current constitutional framework, eliminates by decree rules dictated by Congress and dismantles an institutional structure that has been key to the country’s agricultural development.
It’s not about keeping the status quo. It is about ensuring the minimum conditions for knowledge, the result of the effort of our greatest non -renewable resource, Human capitalcan fulfill a strategic function with social legitimacy and specific effects.
The decision to transform INTA by decree directly impacts what type of country can be built in Argentina, not only based on knowledge already generated, but, and, above all, in relation to the possibility of continuing to produce and apply relevant knowledge for development. What is put at risk is the ability to sustain complex processes of generation, management and appropriation of knowledge, especially in a sector such as agroindustrial, which is diverse, dispersed, complex and dependent on multiple articulated knowledge.
If the institutional conditions that make this dynamic between knowledge and action weaken, what is at stake is not only the present of INTA, but also the country’s ability to continue developing in economic and social terms. This is especially relevant because the agricultural sector represents the main contribution to the national GDP and its impact extends to the entire territory.
Complicating the generation and application of knowledge necessary to sustain and enhance it is not a minor issue: it has structural consequences.
Therefore, a decision of this magnitude should be treated with more time, greater rigor and qualified participation. In order to private consultants, when the country has nationally and internationally recognized human capital, it is a poorly exploited opportunity. And take it under pressure, with deadlines bounded by the delegated powers and in the midst of pre -electoral disputes, it does not seem to be the best way to seriously evaluate what is the most solid, viable and convenient alternative.
*María Luz Martiarena is DRA in Physics, was Secretary Linking and Innovation – Balseir
By María Luz Martiarena
