Government-subsidized "land improvement unions" of farmers in 17 prefectures have misappropriated union membership fees worth 46.13 million yen since fiscal 1996 to pay for union leaders' membership fees for the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and to aid LDP lawmakers, the Agriculture Ministry said this week.
The law empowering the government to subsidize farming projects, such as the construction of irrigation aqueducts and vegetable fields, mandates that such unions use membership fees only to pay for the cost of building joint farming facilities for member farmers.
Under the 1949 land improvement law, the central government has financed roughly half of the farming projects undertaken by such unions, with the rest of the cost shared by local governments and farmers in the form of union membership fees.