Support for agricultural production methods designed to protect the environment and to maintain the countryside (agri-environment) shall contribute to achieving the Community's policy objectives regarding agriculture and the environment.
Such support shall promote:
- ways of using agricultural land which are compatible with the protection and improvement of the environment, the landscape and its features, natural resources, the soil and genetic diversity,
- an environmentally-favourable extensification of farming and management of low-intensity pasture systems,
- the conservation of high nature-value farmed environments which are under threat,
- the upkeep of the landscape and historical features on agricultural land,
- the use of environmental planning in farming practice.