Managing indigenous knowledge for sustainable agricultural development in developing countries: Knowledge management approaches in the social context Edda Tandi Lwoga a , Patrick Ngulube b, *, Christine Stilwell c a Sokoine National Agricultural Library, Sokoine University of Agriculture, Tanzania b Department of Information Science, University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa c Information Studies Programme, School of Sociology and Social Studies, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa KEYWORDS Indigenous knowledge; Agricultural knowledge; Knowledge management; Information and communication technologies (ICT); Tanzania; Developing countries Abstract This paper is based on a PhD study (Lwoga, 2009) that sought to assess the applica- tion of knowledge management (KM) approaches in managing indigenous knowledge (IK) for sustainable agricultural practices in developing countries, with a specific focus on Tanzania. This study used a mixed-research method which was conducted in six districts of Tanzania. Non-participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and focus groups were used to collect primary data from small-scale farmers in the selected districts. A total of 181 farmers participated in the semi-structured interviews, where the respondents ranged between 27 and 37 per district. Twelve focus group discussions were conducted in the selected districts. The study revealed that IK was acquired and shared within a small, weak and spontaneous network, and thus knowledge loss was prevalent in the surveyed communities. There were distinct vari- ations in the acquisition of agricultural IK both in different locations and between genders. Information and communication technologies (ICT), culture, trust, and status influenced the sharing and distribution of IK in the surveyed communities. The research findings showed that KM models can be used to manage and integrate IK with other knowledge systems, taking the differences into account (for example, gender, location, culture, infrastructure). The paper concludes with recommendations for the application of KM approaches for the management of IK and its integration with other knowledge systems for agricultural development in devel- oping countries, including Tanzania. ª 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. * Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: tlwoga@suanet.ac.tz, tlwoga@gmail.com (E.T. Lwoga), ngulup@unisa.ac.za (P. Ngulube), Stilwell@ukzn.ac.za (C. Stilwell). available at www.sciencedirect.com journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/iilr The International Information & Library Review (2010) 42, 174e185 1057-2317/$ - see front matter ª 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.iilr.2010.07.006