中山間地域の現局面と新たな政策課題

新基本法・直接支払政策導入下において

抄録

The subject of this paper is to make clear the present situation of hilly and mountainous areas, the less favoured areas in Japanese agriculture, and also the problems of the new policy applied to those areas. The conclusion is as follows.
1. In the hilly and mountainous areas, especially in and around the Western Japan there are brought about such problems as depopulated areas, ruined agricultural lands and difficulties in maintaining communities.
2. In order to deal politically with these problems the following three requirements should be satisfied. (1) Formation of new conditions for settlement which can correspond to the inclination of natural decrease of population. (2) Compensation for and improvement of the unfavorable conditions which have been proved as the price policy is weakened. (3) Flexible measures responding to regional varieties. Looking back on the past policies for the hilly and mountainous areas, cares were not paid enough. But the reflection on these problems resulted in the establishment of the new basic law on food, agriculture and rural areas and there will be into effect in this chance the direct payments to hilly and mountainous areas.
3. This system of direct payments, as one of the policies of Japanese style, has the following three features: (1) In the operation of the system village communities are regarded as important. (2) The target farmers are not selected. (3) Discretions and judgments of local governments are respected.
4. Although we should estimate these policies as epoch making, there are also problems. So comprehensive measures, therefore, are required for the hilly and mountainous areas in addition to the direct payments.