The environmental services that farmers perform for the community are increasingly recognized, and French agricultural policy is increasingly likely to encourage them to perform such services. With regard to landscape, a survey conducted in two medium-height mountainous regions shows that though most stockbreeders do not share the notion of landscape diffused by public policy programs, some are quite willing to participate in those programs while others participate only exceptionally. Analyzing these farmers’ technical thinking as producers in connection with how service to the landscape is conceptualized in environmental economics allows for identifying farmers’ reasons and understanding the aforecited divergence between them. It also suggests that the notion of involvement is more relevant here than intentionality, while revealing major tension between local communities’ regulation of the agricultural landscape and the regulation implemented by the public authorities, emphasizing service to the environment.