For the past fifteen years, agriculture in industrialized countries has been going through a series of redefinitions of its framework conditions. In 1992, the introduction of the agricultural sector into the negotiations of the World Trade Organisation (then still GATT) sounded the death knell for the agricultural exception that had protected the various agricultural sectors from free international competition. Reforms followed to make agriculture compatible with world trade rules. The notion of decoupling (separating pricing policy from income policy) has emerged, leading in its wake to the notion of multifunctionality. At the heart of the political debate are the current challenges facing agriculture: further liberalisation of agricultural trade, the removal of obstacles to the free movement of agricultural products, the recognition of non-market public goods (ex-territorialities) produced by agriculture, such as landscape maintenance, the maintenance of natural resources and animal welfare. This liberalization led to profound restructuring in the countryside: accelerated disappearance of small farms, continued increase in their size, decrease in agricultural commodity prices, decrease in income, increased dependence on public policies, etc.