The territorial transformations that have taken place during the last decade in the South American temperate grasslands - the "Pampas" - have been accompanied by dramatic social changes. As large-scale agribusiness replaces extensive livestock production, agricultural investment fund managers -IFM- break as the newest actors of the reshaped landscape. Unable to reproduce their traditional livelihoods under the growing economic and environmental pressures, many family farmers are selling or renting their properties to IFM while migrating to the cities. Uruguay is a privileged laboratory for the study of this coupled socio-territorial dynamics. As in Argentina and Brazil, Uruguayan Pampas' are being agriculturized2 by large-scale soybean mono cropping. This process is being accelerated by the emergence of the new markets of China and India, the two main soybean importers of the Pampean countries. Bounded by tradition and by values that go beyond profit making, some family livestock farmers strive to avoid rural exodus and to adapt to these new scenarios while maintaining their livelihoods, strongly identified with extensive cattle grazing. Small to medium-sized farmers usually choose between two adaptation strategies: i) to continue with cattle grazing through, a) technological innovation and intensification and/or b) cost reduction; or ii) to abandon livestock production and convert to soybean production. Any of these strategies are threatened, however, by the strong increase of land prices, generated not only by soybean mono cropping (dubbed the "white gold" of South America), but also by major forestry and pulp mill developments. This paper will not focus on the environmental impact of soybean mono cropping in the Pampa biome, an issue which is still highly disputed. It will, instead, offer an interdisciplinar, systemic approach to the social consequences of the land competition between modern, large-scale agriculture and traditional, low input livestock production