In-situ conservation of plants, in particular food plants, is an important goal for our indigenous communities. This is further relevant as communities look to achieve international expectations aligned to food sovereignty and food security. The UN Sustainable Development Goals aligned to The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is a good example of this in action. But to achieve full biological integrity of our food plants and systems there needs to be a managed approach to support in-situ conservation. Our indigenous communities are not easily capable of undertaking the conservation without support from external parties such as scientists and researchers who can contribute to their management needs when new threats such as pests or diseases appear, or the cost of allocating land resources which are exposed to other pressures such as urbanisation, rates, or environmental degradation such as that through climate driven impacts. This means there needs to be a policy shift at all governing levels to support in-situ conservation and the aligned traditional knowledge inputs, thus ensuring plants and germplasm are retained for future generations to access. This access is ultimately a benefit for all of society through the unique genetics held within collections which may support future responses to biological risk in our food production sector.