Issues for Electing Representatives of Land Improvement Districts with Member Polarization

―Analysis focusing on the number of member farmers and the area of farmland―

Abstract

Members of land improvement districts (LIDs) that operate and maintain irrigation/drainage facilities have been polarizing into large-scale farmers and small-scale farmers. For electing representatives of LIDs, “one person one vote method” has been used. This method is advantageous for candidates recommended by small-scale farmers, because they occupy most of the seats in LIDs. Representatives who have the same opinions as the small-scale farmers will then increase in an assembly of the representatives. As the result, proper reflection of the opinions of large-scale farmers that cultivate most of the farmland becomes difficult. Therefore, this study qualitatively analyzed the methods for electing representatives of LIDs with member polarization based on previous studies. The following issues were observed: (1) a method for deciding the number of votes for a member of a LID should be changed from “one person one vote method” to “a new method” (number of votes for a member should be the sum of “one vote per member” and “votes obtained by sharing the votes according to the area of the member's farmland”), and (2) when using the new method, “the subtotal of votes for the LID based on the number of member farmers” must be equivalent to “the subtotal based on the area of the farmland”.