Identifying the Local Agricultural Knowledge of Rural Women with an Emphasis on Gender Analysis: The Case of Neishaboor City

Until 1970s the local knowledge invoked the concepts of being backward and static in the mind which ensued from classic thoughts and attitudes towards development, particularly towards innovation and the ways of transferring technology to developing countries. With the emergence of economic, social and environmental problems resulting from inappropriate application of technologies some changes occurred gradually in the paradigm of renovation and thus extraordinary changes took place in the type of attitudes towards local knowledge. Under these changes, cultures, knowledge, capacities and skills of the locals were considered respectful and valuable. They attracted the attention and emphasis of development experts as complimentary scientific knowledge in planning development and cooperation. However, the gender dimension of local knowledge has received little attention and there are few researches on identifying the nature and role of female local knowledge in the areas of production. Based on the theory of gender differences, women and men have different knowledge and skills in production which results from their different roles and duties. As the results of this research show the rural women of the sample city have a rich local agricultural knowledge whose degree varies at various stages of production in a way that their greatest knowledge with a mean of 16.2 belongs to “planting” and the lowest to maintenance and manufacturing operations with a mean of 13.3. The identification of this knowledge can be effective in developmental planning and an appropriate way for adjusting the socioeconomic inequalities hidden in policies and development plans.