According to this article, the increasing interest in on-farm conservation is driven by its diverse attractive features, its participatory nature and its flexible and dynamic features, its capacity to maintain not only crop diversity but also the knowledge that evolves with it and the chance it offers to link conservation with utilization and farmers' livelihoods. To implement this strategy on a sustainable basis, policy incentives are crucial. This article argues that opportunity costs farmers face have a role to play to design sound policy incentives.