above and below SPS standards in food, animal, and plant regulations from country to country. Independently from the international standard (Codex Alimentarius, www .codexalimentarius.net), national standards might imply an asymmetry of trade exchanges.

Structural adjustment policies (SAPs) of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have significantly reshaped national agriculture policies in developing countries.

The structural adjustment policies were aimed at helping countries cut down their debt. Many SAPs required developing countries to cut spending. As a result, centralized seed distribution programs, price supports for food and farm inputs, agricultural research, and certain commodities (often locally consumed foods) were eliminated or downsized (Bourguignon et al., 1991). While national support systems protecting traditional livelihoods (maintaining native crops, landraces, etc.), food security, rural communities, and local cultures suffered, private corporations were given loans to partner with developing countries to develop industrial agriculture with crops mainly for export. Such financial mechanisms controversially promoted monocultural cropping that required farm inputs such as commercial seeds, chemicals, fossil-fuel based machinery, as well as requiring an increase in water usage.

Rising environment concerns and the recognition of global environmental public goods have had impacts on trade and livelihoods.

Increased interest in tropical forest conservation and the potential Territory is a new scale, intermediate between local and national issues, allowing market and state failures to be adrole of marketing non-timber forest products has led to heightened interest in the international trade of a wide range of natural products (e.g., Kusters and Belcher, 2004; Sunderland and Ndoye, 2004). The Convention on Biological Diversity has brought attention to issues of access to, and use of genetic resources of a wide range of species not formerly considered as crops, but of significance in horticulture, biotechnology, crop protection and pharmaceutical/ nutriceutical and cosmetics industries (ten Kate and Laird, 1999; Weber, 2005). The CBD also outlined the ways in which these industries should interact responsibly with traditional communities, the holders of Traditional Knowledge about products from this wide array of potentially useful species when engaging in "biodiscovery" and "bioprospecting" (Laird, 2002). In particular, it has highlighted the need to appreciate the interactions between nature conservation, sustainable use and social equity through the development of "fair and equitable benefit sharing agreements" that respect the culture and traditions of indigenous people, and that support and enhance genetic diversity (Almekinders and de Boef, 2000).

3.2.4.4 Territorial governance

Territory is a new scale, intermediate between local and national issues, allowing market and state failures to be ad

dressed. It is a portion of space delimited by a social group that implements coordination institutions and rules and thus is useful when developing integrated approaches to rural development (Sepulveda et al., 2003; Caron, 2005). Applied to agricultural production, the concept helps to address disconnects between scales with regard to ecological processes, individual decisions, collective management and policies. As it is controlled by local stakeholders, it also strengthens participation in the design of new activities and policies to reduce or prevent marginalization.

The concept of multifunctionality in agriculture and rural areas has simultaneously opened the way to changes in policies, research and operational issues.

Multifunctional agriculture became a new policy goal in Europe in 2000 (www.european-agenda.com), which encouraged the transformation of rural areas towards a "multifunctional, sustainable and competitive agriculture throughout Europe". The main idea was to encourage the production of non-commodity goods or services through the subsidy of commodity outputs (Guyomard et al., 2004). Promoting multifunctionality has sometimes been the milestone of new policies, such as the French "Territorial Management Contract" (Contrat Territorial d'Exploitation, CTE) implemented through the 1999 Agricultural Act. The objectives have been partially achieved (Urbano and Vollet, 2005) in areas where the supply of high quality products has been increased through contracts between government and farmers, while protecting natural resources, biodiversity and landscapes. However, it is not limited to developed countries and in some developing countries, notably Brazil, multifunctional agriculture has promoted policies for family agriculture (Losch, 2004). Multifunctionality has also been advocated as a sustainable approach to land use in Africa (Leakey, 2001ab). In Europe, the concept of multifunctionality has progressed through state-of-the-art research projects (www.multagri.net), for example through new modeling tools to understand the integration of different functions.

Multifunctional approaches of rural territories contribute to the evaluation of rural development practices in which agricultural and non-agricultural business come together.

Rural development to reduce poverty and improve the rural environment is recognized as an integrated activity requiring policies that take into account the holistic nature of the task. Consequently, current approaches are maintaining a broad vision of agriculture that involves: farmers integrated into the appropriate agricultural production-trade chain with dynamic links to social, economic and environmental activities in their region. Development plans are specific to the needs of the farmer and the rural development sector and recognize the heterogeneity of agriculture and its cultural setting, within and between countries (Sebillote, 2000, 2001)