Africa to embrace IK to improve agriculture


Lazarus Sauti

Indigenous Knowledge is the local knowledge – knowledge that is unique to a given culture or society.

It is the basis for local-level decision making in agriculture, food preparation, education, natural resource management and a host of other activities in rural communities.
More so, IK encompasses the skills, experiences and insights of people, applied to maintain or improve their livelihood.

Collence Chisita, a Harare based researcher believes that IK is the social capital of the poor.

Therefore, he urged African countries to embrace it since it is part of the lives of the rural poor.

Chisita comments: “IK is dominant, easily accessible, and safe for men and animals. It promotes social cohesion and thus, Africa must embrace indigenous knowledge systems to improve the livelihoods of her citizenry since indigenous knowledge and practices are useful in enabling farmers to compete and respond to global opportunities and challenges.”

He goes on to say, “Indigenous knowledge systems represent mechanisms to ensure minimal livelihoods for Africans since they are elaborate and adapted to local culture and environmental conditions tuned to the needs of local people and quality and quantity of available resources.”

Chisita urged stakeholders in the agriculture fraternity in Africa to encourage farmers to embrace indigenous knowledge as an avenue to improve their farming practices.

He also said policy decision makers in the agriculture industry should encourage farmers to practice selection of clean planting materials to control pests and diseases and use indigenous knowledge systems to improve the quality of their livestock.

This simply means local farming techniques can be used instead of expensive technology.

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