Valuing the Use of Agrobiodiversity By Combining Policy Instruments and Local Measures: From the Diversity of Initiatives to Policy Recommendations

Biodiversity, essential to the health of humans and the planet, is under threat. The decline in food agrobiodiversity is less well publicised than that of wild diversity, but just as dramatic. An abundance of literature has shown how public action has been detrimental to maintaining agrobiodiversity on farms. However, few studies have examined the way in which public action provides, directly or indirectly, economic support for the maintenance or use of biodiversity. At the same time, while local food systems are presented as solutions for preserving orphan crops in the Global South, there is little information on how the development of local food policies in northern countries can open up a new perspective for public action to economically support the use and maintenance of agrobiodiversity by farmers. As part of the European DIVINFOOD project, this article aims to present, discuss and enrich a typology developed within the project on local initiatives combining policy instruments and voluntary measures to provide direct and indirect economic support to farms for the use of agrobiodiversity, in particular neglected and underutilised crops (NUCs) such as minor cereals and legumes. This typology was established on the basis of an analysis of institutional documents and scientific literature, as well as case studies in France, Italy and Portugal, representative of the diversity identified through the desk research. Three types of initiatives are proposed here for discussion, each combining specific policy instruments and voluntary measures. The discussion about these three types will help to formulate recommendations to policy-makers to support new economic models for farms using agrobiodiversity.