Spatial Dimension of the CAP: Territorial Congruence, Supposed and Explicit Territoriality

Abstract

The policies promoted by the EU, and in particular those stemming from the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), have major repercussions on the agrarian and rural landscape. However, the tendency of these policies is to design funding measures in such a way as to have the widest possible array of beneficiaries. Furthermore, mostly in Italy, landscape and regional planning currently establishes the constraints and the “rules of the game”, but does not have the resources needed to implement the strategies that can preserve or improve the landscape function. What is needed, then, is to bring a holistic, spatial vision which is typical of regional and landscape plans, and to move beyond the one-dimensional and economic/production-oriented approach taken by sectorial plans through a combination of territorial governance tools. From this perspective, the CAP could become a “toolbox” for building concrete spatial and landscape policies. In this chapter the authors show some of the results emerging from recent research carried out in the Piedmont Region (Northwest of Italy) that involved the spatial issues of the first pillar of the CAP and Rural Development Program (RDP) for the periods 2007–2013 and 2014–2020. Based on GIS tools and overlay maps, the authors will focus on the territorial interactions, congruence/incongruence and symmetries between the CAP (and, in particular, RDPs) and the areas of landscape, territorial and environmental interest for regional development. This approach aims to check some spatial evidences and priorities, as well as evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of these tools for the achievement of environmental and landscape targets.