The Management of Knowledge with other Knowledge Systems for Agricultural Development: Challenges and Opportunities for Developing Countries

Abstract

This paper seeks to establish the challenges and opportunities for managing agricultural indigenous and external knowledge in the rural areas of developing countries, with a specific focus on Tanzania. Semi-structured interview, focus groups and problem trees were used to collect primary data from farmers in the six regions of Tanzania. The findings indicated that farmers faced various challenges in managing their knowledge, which included personal, social, resources, skills, technological and external environment such as infrastructure, policy, Intellectual Property Rights (IPR), and weak linkages between research, extension and farmers. Various opportunities and recommendations are given for enhancing the management of indigenous and external knowledge for agricultural development in Tanzania.