Landscapes and livelihoods: environmental protection and agricultural support in the wake of Agenda 2000

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Abstract
The European Commission's Agenda 2000 for reform of the Common Agricultural Policy is not the radical overhaul of agricultural support that was expected. Regarded not as the conclusion, however, but as the start of a process of reform that will increasingly be subject to external influence, the proposals mark an important stage on the road to an integrated European Rural Policy. So far as landscape protection is concerned, two key questions need to be asked: first, how successful have policy makers been in tackling one of the underlying causes of environmental destruction by decoupling agricultural support from farmers’ production decisions? Second, to what extent have they succeeded in recoupling support to wider social and environmental objectives? This article assesses Agenda 2000 in these terms. It goes on to discuss what decoupling and recoupling might mean for the future relationship between farming livelihoods and the conservation of agricultural landscapes in the context of a more liberalized system of agricultural support.

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