New challenges towards the preservation of agricultural biodiversity to secure food and agricultural ecosystems arise in times of increasing demand on agricultural products and resources. Agriculture as one of the biggest land user takes a central role in preserving the biological diversity. In social sciences, there are different definitions of social esteem and accordingly there are different ways to operationalize the concept. In our contribution, we focus on the economic perspective. The focal point is the social appreciation, which is determined in economic valuation studies. We first briefly explain this economic understanding. We continue to explain what we know (so far) about the coherence of this appreciation with personal goals and moral ideas. Then we present examples on what is known about the extent of social esteem.