Analyse du paysage et étude régionale des systèmes de production agricole

An analysis of the landscape and a regional study of agricultural production systems The study of the means of development (of a region's agriculture) implies an all-round knowledge of its situation, above all of its farm units. Within the framework of such studies and with a view to synthesis, two notions are considered together : the first - technico-economic - is the farm' production systems ; the other - geographic - is the landscape. After briefly outlining the production system and a few remarks about the limitations of studies being made at present the author develops his conception of « landscape » : a basis of data which are original because of the simultaneity in time and the superposition or proximity in space of a number of phenomena. Landscape analysis can be organized. It then, as two examples show, brings to light the interaction of the production systems factors. It reveals certain aspects of the nature and functioning of these factors and the constraints imposed on their evolution. Finally it suggests the hypotheses which guide the analysis of present systems and the elaboration of modified or new systems. Landscape analysis has a part to play in the preliminary phases of an analysis of the agriculture of a region.