Strengthening Youth Farmer Regeneration Through Knowledge Management Practices in Farmer Communities

Abstract

This study discusses how knowledge management (KM) practices at the community level can help regenerate youth in farming communities as part of the farmers. The study is based on the KM model proposed by Probst (1998), which comprises the identification, acquisition, development, distribution, use and preservation of knowledge as interrelated processes that maintain intergenerational sustainability of the agricultural sector. By filling a major research gap, the study relates to the paucity of empirical research specifically examining farmer regeneration through a KM lens, the dearth of understanding how KM practices are lived differently by generations and the dearth of research on how Indonesian farming communities experience indigenous, formal and digital knowledge systems in sustaining agriculture across generations. These observations indicate that KM activities in the community, such as knowledge sharing through participation, intergenerational learning, mentoring, and leadership opportunities, are at the centre stage in influencing youth engagement and their motivation to join the agricultural sector. As much as structural barriers remain, such as a lack of access to land, failure to change perceptions about agricultural work, and dissimilar exposure to modern agricultural knowledge, farmer groups can entice and keep young farmers by promoting collaborative learning settings and utilising both traditional and new sources of knowledge. On the whole, this paper contributes to a clear understanding of the importance of a community-based approach to knowledge management around the area of youth unemployment in agriculture and provides conceptual and practical recommendations to policymakers, non-governmental organisations, and agricultural institutions to enhance farmer regeneration and intergenerational agricultural knowledge.