Landscape, the identity card for the rural areas

The preservation and enhancement of the landscape represent one of the new challenges for agriculture indicated by the EU reform of the Health Check. This is a challenge that must be interpreted in terms of agricultural and environmental protection as well as in terms of territorial marketing, in order to promote local products where quality is closely linked to the identity of the territory from which they come. To preserve the landscape, the NDP indications are aimed at promoting the sustainable use of agricultural land in order to shore up the erosion phenomenon (In Italy, over the past 25 years, 5.8 million hectares of agricultural land have been eroded away from the total agricultural area). The other objective is to encourage and recover cultivation systems that were traditionally practised with such actions as the restoration of terraced growing areas, dry stone walls and old barns.