This paper analyses the Rural Environment Protection Scheme (reps) in Ireland. It addresses competing approaches to knowledge and the dominance of science in debates on agri-environmental policy. Science is used effectively as an officialising strategy, to justify this form of state intervention in farming. Any objections that farmers might raise are deemed old-fashioned and therefore illegitimate. They are engaging in symbolic or ideological struggles and cultural politics are being forged on the anvil of representations of the environment.