The Globalized Landscape: Rural Landscape Change and Policy in the United States and European Union

While some rural areas draw increasing populations to their landscape amenities and some are changed by the long reach of metropolitan sprawl, agriculture defines, and dominates rural landscapes. Amenity characteristics and ecological services of many rural landscapes occur in the context of agricultural economies. As these economies respond to international trade, international policy, notably policies of the World Trade Organization (WTO), is increasingly affecting rural landscape change. The USA and the European Union (EU), partners as well as independent players in global trade, and agriculture, employ comparable but distinct policies to strengthen both the economic competitiveness of agriculture and the sustainability of rural livelihoods and landscape management. Pushed by WTO mandates, both the EU and USA recently have given a higher profile to agricultural policy with explicit environmental goals, so-called agri-environmental policy, because it may achieve public benefits without distorting trade. This chapter compares the intent, mechanisms, and landscape effects of the different conservation and agri-environmental policies of the USA and EU, and suggests that international trade policy could drive planning for future agricultural landscapes that provide enhanced amenity and ecological values.