ABSTRACT
In the past half-century, we have begun to pay attention to agricultural landscapes in many new ways. While some of these new ways include destroying them by paving them over for large-scale housing developments and shopping malls, others work to opposite effect: the preservation of agricultural landscapes under threat of such developments. But why should we bother to preserve agricultural landscapes? Why should
we care about them? What do agricultural landscapes mean to us, beyond the sheer provision of food? What role does aesthetics play in the value of agriculture? What do we mean by aesthetics in this context? And how do Eastern and Western views of the aesthetic value of agricultural landscapes differ?
