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This paper examines a conservation scheme in Wales called Tir Cymen (tidy land in Welsh) as a means of exploring the extent to which policies designed primarily to support habitat, landscape, biodiversity and conservation are commensurate with goals to maintain viable rural communities,including viable agricultures. Maximizing the broader rural development impacts of conservation schemes, it is argued, is a vital ingredient in the pursuit of sustain‐able rural development, particularly in regions where many farm businesses are likely to be already highly dependent upon subsidy support. It is argued, through the presentation of the Tir Cymen case, that conservation policies can,if appropriately designed and regionally embedded, go some way to mitigating both the 'farm problem' and the 'rural problem', and are therefore capable of a sustainable and desirable rural development impact commensurate with the new rural development paradigm.

This paper explores the role of short food supply chains in rural development. By developing a theoretical perspective, it seeks to contribute to debates on the generalized theory of rural development. It argues that in order to more fully understand their role and potential we need to move beyond descriptions of product flows to examine how supply chains are built, shaped and reproduced over time and space. Consideration is given to the definition of short food supply chains, and a three level typology is presented. The paper examines the dimensions and evolution of short food supply chains, and identifies four types of evolution: temporal, spatial, demand and associational or institutional. Case studies from the impact research programme are positioned within this framework, and it is argued that we need conceptualizations that reflect the dynamic and evolutionary nature of supply chains and the businesses they involve. A case study of the Llyn Beef Producers Co‐operative in Wales is expanded to illustrate the evolution of supply chains and their role in rural development, both at the farm level and within the wider rural economy.