In 1893, Ahmet Reşid Bey, the Ottoman agricultural inspector for the Vilayets of Syria and Beirut left his post without permission and made his way via Port Said to Chicago to attend the World’s Columbian Exposition. He was eager to examine the exhibition’s displays of new agricultural equipment and, despite the Sublime Port’s consternation at his unauthorized departure, officials considered the lengthy and thorough report he provided upon his return valuable enough to pardon his impulsive decision. Reşid Bey’s enthusiasm was representative of that exhibited by a growing group of Ottoman officials who, for purposes of food and resource production as well as revenue, were enthusiastic to acquire and apply knowledge about emerging technologies in the agricultural sphere through new administrative policies and practices. This paper proposes to explore the international networks of expertise in which these officials operated and how their interactions and engagements abroad inflected their implementation of policies at home. Despite the importance of agricultural production to the finances of the Ottoman state and the sustenance of its population, the historiography related to these developments in the latter decades of the Ottoman Empire remains quite slim. In particular, the impact of the personal engagement of Ottoman technocrats with their counterparts in Europe and beyond is largely unexplored. This paper aims to respond to this gap by exploring Ottoman participation not only in the Chicago World Exhibition, but also in organizations like the International Institute of Agriculture (IIA) founded in Rome in 1905 and events like tractor competitions. Using documents from the Ottoman and IIA archives as well as periodicals from the period, this paper will demonstrate how Ottoman participation in these activities inspired the planning of Ottoman exhibitions and privileged the construction of a web of model farms and agricultural schools and the cultivation of a network of specially-trained experts within the empire to staff them. This paper will argue that Ottoman technocrats were an integral part of networks engaged in learning about, experimenting with, and disseminating these new methods, albeit with an enthusiasm tempered by a desire to ensure that technology developed elsewhere was adapted to the ecological exigencies of the Empire. Drawing on a framework of space, it will demonstrate how these officials’ engagement with international bodies and networks of expertise abroad was intimately connected to the formation of inter-empire networks and the establishment of a web of domestic agricultural institutions.