The Farmers and the System

The irrigator groups are to be the means of achieving one prerequisite for sound management of an irrigation system: a set of procedures for keeping the managers continuously informed about the farmers&s; situations and for making judgements about what share of the available supply farmers in different localities should be given. Irrigator groups are also to be the means of organising the maintenance of conveyance and drainage channels below the outlet. The smallest administrative unit in South Korea is the ban, fourteen to twenty households which live adjacently, grouped under the ban-jang, the ban headman. Substantial monetary prizes are given to the villages whose farmers all pay their assessed charges earlier rather than later. Korean villages have had a long tradition of self-government. In short, Korean villagers have much experience of deliberately concerting their actions in some collective interest.