Dear Dr. Sagal.

I have no experience, but I have read studies of Elinor Östrom addressed to enhance strategies for small communities initiatives for sustainable development (mainly related to water resources using and land using). I suggest you retrieve Östrom's and her fellow's studies, like "Working Together: Collective Action, the Commons, and Multiple Methods in Practice" (book), by Amy R. Poteete, Marco A. Janssen, Elinor Ostrom Princeton University Press, 2010.

Other reference work:

http://dlc.dlib.indiana.edu/dlc/bitstream/handle/10535/5683/Collective%20action%20and%20the%20evolution%20of%20social%20norms.pdf?sequence=1

Maybe such approach can be generic considering tge geopolitical deadlock of GMO, but it provides a baseline for communities organization aimed at sustainable development. 

Just follow crop cafeteria approach either in the university or in-situ.

It is good concept to restore and protect endangered native plant species known for their health and spiritual significance to humans and animals. There are plants that represent Navagrahas 9 , Zodiac signs 12 and Nakshatra 27 in number to a total of 48. They are well recognized since ancient times in India to provide health and spiritual bliss when grown adopting a specified geometry. Adopting organic farming technologies, it is possible to grow and maintain these divine/spiritual gardens in Nepal and else where in the world. I can provide details of plant species in this regard.

Encourage local people to grow locally adapted plants.  Growing and using them in the local diet will encourage their propogation and preservation.  See http://foodplantsolutions.org/ for details of a project which aims to provide information resources regarding locally adapted plants to people living in developing countries.

The government has to encourage the small farmers by giving financial support and the government has to procure those agricultural products directly. 

Dear Sagar

In my region Puglia, in Southern Italy (in the middle of the Mediterranean Basin) the regional government has developed a plan to preserve, conserve (in situ and ex situ) and valorize local varieties of several crops (vegetables, cereals, leguminous, fruits, olives, wine and table grape) that are considered at risk of genetic erosion.

The first step of the plan was to create a record of all the local varieties at risk of genetic erosion, then for each local variety has been prepared a detailed description of the morphological traits, complete also of pictures and it was produced an ‘Atlas of the Apulia agro-biodiversity’.

After a list of local threatened varieties was defined the regional government have launched a call to identify ‘guardian farmers’ who still grow the local varieties and maintain this crop producing the seeds by themselves. Then the local administration recognized a little financial support to all the guardian farmers that have demonstrated to conserve in situ one or more of the threatened varieties on a minimum surface (different based on the type of crop) pledging to conserve such varieties for at least 5 years.

In my opinion such subsidies may be helpful in few cases, but at the end people will grow and maintain the local varieties only if they have a real interest (a revenue, a particular quality traits, if there is a niche market, …).

In fact, beside the little financial support destined directly to the ‘guardian farmers’ our regional government has funded 5 different integrate projects (one specifically for vegetable crops http://biodiversitapuglia.it/, the other for cereal and leguminous, olive, fruits and vineyard), each involving both public institutions, research centers and private organizations with the objective of preserving, conserve (in situ and ex situ), characterize and promote all the most important local varieties identified in the regional territories).

In my opinion one of the most important aspects of this work is to characterize the local varieties especially for their nutritional and phytochemical profile. Because very often we see that local varieties have an higher nutrient density as compared to standard commercial varieties of the same species. Finally increasing the public awareness on the importance of our agro-biodiversity resources through the use of social media, websites, public events, it is possible to promote the gastronomic use of local varieties and the increased demand of the local consumers will push local farmers to grow these local varieties.

This is something currently happening in our region, in fact, certain local varieties of vegetables are sold in top quality market, are destined to a defined group of consumers (loving local produce, fascinated by local traditions, health conscious, that are willing to pay more for high quality produce), and get higher prices as compared to the standard product.

In conclusion, if there is no interest in a specific local variety, consumers will not require that variety and if there is no market for it, growers soon or later will not grow that variety.

I hope the example of what is happening in our region may help you.

Thank you Dr Francesco. This stuff you provided is really fascinating.