ABSTRACT
Agrawal (1995) argues that pristine indigenous knowledge is more likely to have been interacting with external knowledge at least to some extent for the last 500 years. Ever since the colonization of SSA, Western science and technology have been the predominant external knowledge interacting with TK for aiding decisions for managing the capitals (natural, human, social, cultural, physical, and financial) for economic growth and development. However, the widespread and increasing land degradation provides evidence that the modernization through science and technology alone has not yielded the desired impacts to agriculture. TK has not been effectively used for promoting the soil management aspects of increasing resilience and recovery, nor used to build the confidence of communities in making their management decisions, following their own procedures and objectives and for development workers to add value. Several reasons are cited for this discrepancy, including institutional failures (policy thrust aggressively promoting Science and Technology (S&T) even without relevance), idealization of TK, and lack of a framework/mechanism for integration.
