In this survey, special attention is drawn on EU practice as the European trade bloc has established a separate pillar in its Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) which exclusively deals with rural development and agri-environment. In the case of the EU, the paper looks at the lega framework on RD and agri-environment at the EU level, while further taking four national/regional programs as examples for how Member States have been implementing the EU framework legislation on RD. The other Quad countries are addressed in the sequence (Canada, United States and Japan) as this order best reflects the degree of engagement the individual countries have shown in agriculture-related conservation.
