Setting the Number of Voting Rights in General Meetings of Land Improvement Districts with Polarization of Members

― Analyzing a new method “adding voting rights according to the area of farmland” ―

Abstract

Members of land improvement districts (LIDs) that operate and maintain irrigation/drainage facilities polarize into large-scale agriculture management entities and small-scale farm households. In a general meeting for decision making of a LID, the present method for setting the number of voting rights, “one person one vote”, is advantageous for small-scale farm households because they occupy most of the seats in the LID. For that reason, large-scale agriculture management entities that cultivate most of the farmland in a LID, may be discouraged from fulfilling their duties because they have an inequity in decision making. Therefore, this study proposed and analyzed a new method “adding voting rights according to the area of farmland” with confirmation of the validity of the method using statistical data from a model LID. The following results were observed: (1) the number of voting rights for a member should be the sum of “one per member” and “a number obtained by sharing the subtotal of voting rights, which is equivalent to the number of total members, according to the area of his/her farmland”, and (2) when the new method is introduced, attention must be paid to the promotion of consensus building using workshop techniques within large-scale agriculture management entities before voting.