Interrelating knowledge processes with institutional and cultural contexts in organic rice farming: insights from integrated rice and duck farming in the Hongdong community of South Korea

Abstract

We can build on each others’ experiences through exchanging knowledge and know-how. In the best case this enables technical, social and economical innovation and evolution. This article tells the story of sharing, modifying and creating new knowledge around an organic rice farming method applied and adapted in South Korea. The article’s goal is to show how the analysis of knowledge processes brings meaning into the process of searching for greater sustainability in agriculture and rural development. The article emerges from a master thesis in Human Geography where concepts from knowledge management were used to describe and analyse the knowledge sharing and learning processes within the international network of Integrated Rice and Duck Farming (IRDF) (Rutz 2008). Its local focus lies on the community of Hongdong, a rural place in South Korea with about two thousand small scale farmers.