Economics
- Overview
Elementary economics suggests that the cheaper something is the more of it that will be consumed. Not only does this concept apply to man-made goods and services, as well as commodities (both agricultural and non-agricultural), but it also applies to environmental goods and services. These include things such as clean air, water supply, natural waste disposal services and the existence of biodiversity. Where the implicit price of such goods and services is low or zero, over-consumption can occur, including leading to irreversible loss through extinction.
This is the case with biodiverse resources, such as local crop varieties and livestock breeds, many of which are now threatened. These tend to be undervalued as they have many non-market values associated with them that have not been properly quantified or accounted for through market mechanisms. These non-market values include important socio-cultural functions (e.g. use during special festivals and for dowries), finance and insurance functions (e.g. the use of a mixture of drought-resistance crop varieties can be used to reduce risk; livestock used as a means of saving) and as an option for confronting future disease outbreaks and climate change.
How can we determine whether these unaccounted for values are in fact important? How can these values be taken into account to support conservation and sustainable use? What incentives are needed to encourage conservation? Answering these questions requires the development of appropriate valuation techniques and support for the design of cost-effective policy options that can promote the conservation of important biodiverse resources.
Bioversity’s Economics of Agrobiodiversity Conservation and Sustainable Utilisation programme supports such work.
Browse the following pages to know more about the Programme:
