In an EU concerted action a checklist with criteria for the development of sustainable rural landscape was created. The idea of the concerted action was to bring together experts from various disciplines involved in management of the countryside. They represented disciplines from β, γ and α oriented sciences, ranging form environmentalists over sociologists to cultural geographers. They were all asked to list their (discipline's) criteria and parameters for a sustainable management of the landscape. From all these criteria and parameters a checklist has been established. This checklist is presented in this paper, accompanied by an explanation of its basic concept that draws upon Maslow, its context, its methodology and its use. Finally summaries are presented of the ways the checklist, in various stages of its development, has been used in several European country countrysides. It can be concluded that the checklist is a useful tool for valuing the contribution of farms viz. farming systems to the regional development and the sustainability of the landscape. It was found that organic farms included in the sample of our research often performed rather well in that perspective as compared to the non-organic farms in that region.