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.