al culture, or active development of commercial products made of local processed items. Those self-reliant attempts will become the driving forces in longer terms for regional development, but the subsidy in the national level is still essential as the natural and social disadvantages of the LFAs are very difficult to surmount.
In principle, for the agricultural development in LFA is required a comprehensive approach which encompasses the subsidization to the investment to regional development, the subsidization to the agricultural investment, and the direct income subsidization. It is because the approach biased toward any one aspect would be hardly effective, and, in some cases, it would bring negative effects instead. Notwithstanding that this is the case, it is rather efficient to introduce the direct payment program(DPP) in the first place and curb further deterioration of the LFAs, considering the backwardness of the areas, and then pursue a long-term regional development in the next stage.
It may be true, however, that the instant application of the DPP to Korean agriculture and rural areas is inappropriate, for the program has been invented out of the context of the social structure, consciousness, and agricultural forms of the European region. The idea that residents are entitled to receive subsidies just because they farm in a certain places without any particular condition would be hard to acquire sympathy from general people. It is crucial, therefore, in this context that the multi-functionality of LFA agriculture be appreciated positively, and many studies and activities be performed to impose proper responsibilities for environmental protection on the people in LFAs in their agricultural productive activities. This point is not confined to the agriculture in LFAs but extends to the agriculture of whole country.
Once the introduction of the DPP is decided in LFAs, it is desirable that the focus is above all on the field crop farming rather than on the livestock farming which is the European Union's focus. In this case, only when the cultivation subsidy in proportion to the land size is practised with the investment subsidy to the specialized farmers at the same time, the LFAs will find the end of excessive depopulation and be able to secure young farmers in the coming generations.
This research has the less-favored areas as the object of the study and tries to derive policy tasks. Future studies need to focus more upon such topics as: more detailed analysis of the agricultural structure of LFAs, the investigation of various differences among the LFAs based on case studies, positive studies on the multi-functionality of LFA agriculture, and the ways for the development of LFA agriculture other than the method of income subsidization.
key words : Less-Favored Areas(LFAs), hilly and mountainous areas,
multi-functionality of agriculture, rural development policy,
direct payment, direct income payment.
Student I.D. Number : 90507-802