Blueprints to revitalise 100 market towns and 1,000 rundown villages are to be developed by the countryside agency, which will provide grants for essential services such as public transport.
The agency, created by the government a year ago with a budget of £55m this year and £70m next, has produced a strategy to deal with rural area problems made worse by the collapse of farm incomes which have cost 41,000 jobs in the past two years.
Ewen Cameron, chairman of the agency, said: "The challenges facing the countryside are far wider than the farming crisis or the future of hunting. We want to set off a quiet revolution in towns and villages to give people control over their lives."
Around 20% of the population lives in areas classed as rural. While many rich people have moved to the country to retire or commute long distances to work the plight of the rural poor remains dire, according to the agency.
Eighteen rural districts fall within the most deprived 100 in the country. These include large areas of Cornwall, parts of Devon and Somerset, the Isle of Thanet in Kent, and the Isle of Wight.
In the north, Berwick-upon-Tweed, Pendle in Lancashire, the Wear Valley in Durham, and Scarborough in North Yorkshire all qualify.
Among programmes to be started by the agency is a training programme for parish clerks and councillors so they know what the best councils in the country are achieving and how to tap into the grant system. At the moment, parish councils can apply for £10,000 each to start local transport initiatives, but much of the money is unused through lack of applications.
Another scheme is a village- by-village indentification of sites for affordable homes for children of rural dwellers. They are often priced out of village homes because of the influx of second home owners and retired people.
These sites and the houses on them would be reserved for local people. In this way, communities would remain balanced, rather than composed of older country folk and rich incomers.
The agency is to provide health checks for market towns to measure the level of services - transport, banks, businesses, employment, health, education and housing.
One example of a town revitalised was Ulverston in the Lake District, where £2.3m was put in for regeneration and revived local services and new businesses followed, Mr Cameron said. More than 50 new businesses had started up creating 150 new jobs.
Mr Cameron will be on the Countryside Alliance march on central London on March 17, which is being organised to highlight rural concerns but its mainly a focus on the fox hunting debate.
He said yesterday: "I realise hunting is important to certain members of the rural community. Frankly, it is a distraction that takes people's attention away from serious issues like farming, affordable homes, transport and rural services."
Mr Cameron has the job of "rural advocate" - intervening when government policies could be adapted to help rural areas. The agency is attempting to improve new technology links to rural areas.
The agency is also mapping rights of way and improving access to the countryside. This is seen as a direct way of increasing rural incomes by attracting weekend visitors to rural pubs and shops.
