This article argues that concern with technical knowledge which is indigenous to disadvantaged rural groups must go beyond an interest in extracting fragments of it to make marginal improvements to existing types of R and D project. The main issue must be the extent to which such groups are involved in, and have influence upon, the technical change which affects their lives. The range of potential uses for indigenous technical knowledge is therefore far wider than those involved in R and D, and the central concern must be with augmenting the whole spectrum of indigenous capabilities to create, transform and use technical knowledge. This implies there must be a shift from the dominant approach to rural technical change which merely seeks to introduce into rural society techniques conceived and developed outside it. Rather, one must seek the technological development of rural society which enables it more effectively to pursue and control its own path of technical change.