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areas in Europe (see Barruet 1995b, p. 231) it was the agricultural sector in which the first relevant
mountain programme has been developed. In particular since the beginning of the 1970s support for
mountain farming has got a priority through the establishment of a specific support programme. This
“Mountain Farmers Special Programme” not just focused on site-specific farming difficulties but
attached importance to the social situation of farm households and incorporated the regional
dimension. Along this concept the following groups of measures were combined by this programme:
* direct payments
* improvement of the infrastructure in the mountain area
* regional agricultural aid (in particular investment aid)
* forestry measures
* agricultural terrain improvement and other measures.
Over time the priorities of the programme shifted and direct payments, in particular the mountain
farmers' allowance became the predominant measure. This trend continued also in the 1990s when
the label of the programme was abolished and its core measure, the direct payments, even were
intensified after EU-accession.
The philosophy behind was to conceive this agricultural support as part of mountain specific policies.
Hence it did not just take into account the preservation of mountain farming but made - at least in the
beginning - considerable efforts to raise the farm-related infrastructures and alleviate the situation of
peripheral locations. In the core, the objective to safeguard the development of “cultural landscapes”
as primary base for other uses and asset for local development has been intensified over this period
(Hovorka 1998, OECD 1998a). Together with an increased acceptance of mountain farming
support by the majority of Austrian population it contributed to enlarge the view that an integrated
approach is needed in those areas.
Spatially integrated policies for the Austrian mountain areas
Besides the development of a programme specifically addressing the needs of mountain farmers it
was also conceived very early in Austria that those measures have to be linked to and find its
complement in integrated concepts on the regional development of those peripheral areas. Thus, in