As an alternative to the conventional agriculture concept, sustainable agriculture is ecologically sound, economically viable, socially just, culturally appropriate and based on a holistic approach. Sustainable agriculture uses locally available renewable resources, appropriate and affordable technologies and minimizes the use of external and purchased inputs, thereby increasing local independence and self sufficiency and insuring a source of stable income for rural communities. This strengthens rural farmers and integrates communities with their environment. The sustainable agriculture approach in this project aims to strengthen local traditional environment-friendly practices, and also to cultivate local innovation by PTD to use scientific knowledge to improve rather than displace the traditional knowledge.

PTD in this project is to develop locally adapted and area specific sustainable agriculture technology, by and with villagers, in which villagers combine their own perceived needs, indigenous cosmos, knowledge, practices and resources with those of extensionists and subject matter specialists:

1) With PTD we assume, that within each community there is relevant indigenous knowledge and best practices for sustainable agriculture

2) It was discovered, that villagers' knowledge differs qualitatively from scientific knowledge. Villagers' knowledge is often highly specific to locality and situations, and quite often is only accessible through intuition.

3) The protagonists of PTD aim for a mutual exchange of information and concepts between the two types of knowledge, and for a combination of the skills on both sides.

4) PTD is a search-process with a highly pragmatic orientation. The emphasis is less on trying to understand the prevailing system, it is much more on trying to develop something new which is really useful in a practical way: "Finding new things that work".

The concept of governance refers to any institutional structure, policy, process, strategy, procedure or rule that is used to exercise authority over people and things in a nation, locality or organization (CBIK governance research design). Resource governance is an interactive process between ruler and ruled who are resource related actors, such as government sector, private units and also community members. For improving local access to resources by more accountable institutions, this project helps local institutional building and policy dialogue between local and outsiders.

In Mengsong site, based on local development plans, three local teams in Guanming hamlet had been set up: a water management team, a tea management team (mainly men) and a vegetable management team (mainly women). In Luquan site, three local associations in four villages have been established: the Yellow Pear Management association, the Livestock Raising Association, and the Farming Association. Local farmers join project activities organized by themselves.