Agricultural policies and rural landscape: some insights from theoretical and empirical literature

In the field of the European Landscape Convention (2000), landscape means ‘an area, as perceived by people, whose character is the result of the action and interaction of natural and/or human factors’ (article 1). Such a definition implies that landscape dynamics follow from various actions taken by private and public stakeholders,which are led by different targets and subject to heterogeneous constraints. It also brings into play elaborate interactions between human action and natural dynamics. Rural landscapes and agricultural activities provide a relevant example of such interactions.