The Values and the Need of Preservation of Traditional Agricultural Knowledge as Intangible Heritage

The value of traditional business knowledge such as agricultural skills is as significant as those of other intangible heritages. It may lack aesthetic quality when compared with other registered varieties of intangible heritages. Preservation of traditional knowledge such as agricultural skills is as urgently required as that of already registered heritages, considering current health care problems with regard to safe food, the severity of international food weapon problems, and the ecological crisis for a sustainable society.Traditional agricultural knowledge has been generated in the history of a long agricultural culture of our nation, which is the basic fabric of our ethno-culture. Agricultural skills such as repeated cultivation of rice through direct planting popularized in the 15th century or planting of rice in dry fields which was developed in the 18th century are our cultural heritages which have had a significant meaning in the world agriculture history. Notwithstanding, traditional agricultural knowledge is excluded in establishing cultural policies because of its business characteristics. Even people in favor of eco-friendly agriculture do not properly appreciate the values of our traditional agricultural knowledge. The values of traditional agricultural knowledge cannot be overexaggerated, given that the fossil fuels will be exhausted and mechanical chemical agriculture centered on productivity will encounter its limitations.Traditional agricultural knowledge is transmitted through old literature such as agricultural books, whose usefulness have been significantly reduced because they were situated outside of a practical context. Traditional agricultural knowledge which is being inherited on the business sites is a lot more valuable. It is, however, so dramatically disappearing that urgent measures need to be taken. Cultural policies are to be focused on preservation rather than on conservation in which traditional agricultural knowledge is able to be vivaciously learned on the agricultural sites.