The ‘genetic resources policy initiative’ was a response to reduction in crop genetic diversity that was occurring in developing countries. Identifying policy and institutional failure as the main causes of loss, the book uses case studies that demonstrate different approaches to valuing different crop traits. In Chapter 2, choice experiments are used to quantify the benefits of different varieties of sorghum and teff. Farmers expressed preferences for varieties that displayed environmental adaptability and yield stability. The analysis of rice in Nepal (Chapter 3) uses hedonic pricing and contingent valuation, concluding that ‘aromatic’ and ‘tasty’ traits have values of $149 million and $27 million, respectively. New varieties, when adopted, clearly have the potential to displace traditional values and this is confirmed by survey results presented in Chapter 4. Subsequent chapters show that consumers also value a range of traits, including grain size and kernel density for maize and taste, and oil content and colour for groundnut. An interesting claim for Nepal is that traditional rice varieties may allow farmers to make better use of farm resources, as well as providing some resilience to environmental uncertainty.

In the conclusions and outlook, a distinction is made between marketable traits – for example, varieties that could be sold to niche markets – and those that require some form of public intervention. However, as the authors note, there are few examples of operational ‘payment for environmental services’ schemes in developing countries. With the growth in ‘fair-trade’ products, would a marketing campaign based on fairness and protection of genetic resources be one way of conserving the world's crop diversity?