Indigenous Agricultural knowledge and Gender

Indigenous Knowledge (IK) is important for every nation and consequently for the whole world. from scientific and cultural view point. Previously IK did not have a good status and it was in a ‘backward’ state during 19th century, but in 20th century due to bio-environmental problems caused by inopportune use of modern technology in developing countries, the scholars directed their attention to IK. In this process Gender IK was dealt with as necessity, because the GIK make the rural development more effective. In this paper my aim is to identify GIK, while acknowledging that the rural women IK is different with men’s one. The methods of data gathering include documentary and library Sources, Internet and Field study. In Field study, the different “PRA” Techniques are used. For this purpose 150 women from 22 Nieshabour villages are chosen by simple random and are interviewed. The result of the research shows (with 95% confidents) that the women in this area are very rich in agriculture IK. Most of their IK is in plantation particularly in mixed and livelihood crops, while they have less IK in identifying the modern methods of pest control. But the men have high rank AIK in commercial and mono-cultivation.