Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
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developed a checklist that can now be used to evaluate the sustainability of
any rural area; this is a comprehensive tool that combines top-down univer-
sal criteria and bottom-up tailoring to local conditions. Specifically, their six
criteria for sustainable rural landscape management include environment
(resource conditions), ecology (biological relationships), economy (flow
of finances and services), sociology (participation procedures), psychol-
ogy (subjective landscape appreciation), and cultural geography (objective
regional landscape identity) (4). For each criterion, parameters were set
on how to gather and evaluate data on each topic. Within the checklist
framework, specific goals may be targeted for any given rural area. This
provides a useful tool for studying and evaluating any rural region, and they
suggest that their checklist can be used as a starting point for discussions
among stakeholders, then a full study follow-up can provide specific rec-
ommendations for how farmers and rural residents can achieve landscape
improvements.
Several studies employed this checklist approach in various regions. For
example, inWest Friesland, the Netherlands, four conventional and four or-
ganic farms were compared in terms of visual cultural geography (Hendriks
et al. 2000). Major differences existed between the farms in terms of verti-
cal coherence (soil, flora, land use), horizontal coherence (farm, farmyard,
regional land use), and seasonal and historical integrity, with organic farms
performing better than conventional. Organic farms offered more variety
and variation, yet were visually coherent on the landscape.
The landscape checklist approach was also used to study cultural land-
scape appreciation and identity between organic and conventional farms
in nine EU countries using evaluations by nonexperts and experts (Kuiper
2000). The nonexperts were more positive about the organic farms with
feelings of “naturalness” and comfort, more sensory qualities, and histor-
ical attributes; they also feel inspired to be involved. On the other hand,
experts noted that while the organic farms succeeded in improving eco-
logical quality at the farm level, these small farms were highly diverse and
did not improve aesthetic qualities of “unity” that score high for regional
landscape quality. Some suggest that organic standards should require land-
scape guidelines in the future. This may be possible in the European context
but unlikely in the United States, where rural regional planning is generally
unheard of.
In the fjord region of western Norway, the landscape checklist method
was used as well, this time to evaluate the contribution of two organic farms
to the cultural landscape in this region of rural population decline (Clemet-
sen and van Laar 2000). Both farms contributed to the rural landscape: one
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