18/4/05

Idyllic Landscapes

Still on the subject of landscape, it transpires that the process of mapping and monitoring changes in agricultural cropping patterns, sponsored as a result of the reform of the EU common agricultural policy, is using satellite technology to check on the amount of ploughing and planting by individual farmers. Among the available tones of colour encoded for these purposes is a superb and delicate Rose Madder - even the tracery of footpaths across land is revealed. The Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs cannot yet give a price for the images, but funding will be provided by the Rural Payments Agency. Depiction of the English landscape is entering a new era.