North Korea has recently raised its land
usage fee significantly for small plots cultivated by residents, requiring
people to pay in produce rather than cash. Large numbers of people living in
rural areas rely on crops produced from these plots to sustain their
livelihoods, meaning the recent hike is likely to pose a threat to their
everyday lives.
“Orders requiring residents in farming
areas to pay land usage fees in grains rather than cash were handed down last
year,” a source from Gangwon Province told Daily NK on Sunday. “People last year had to pay 500kg of grains per 1 jeongbo (roughly
9,900㎡), but starting this year they will have to pay
750kg, which is an extra 250kg.”
“The directive to pay land fees in crops
instead of money was issued last year as part of the Marshal’s [Kim Jong Eun]
initiative for the reforestation of barren mountains,” he explained, adding that this
radical increase, requiring residents to pay more than 50 percent of existing
fees, is tantamount to telling these people to give up their land.
Trapped in a state unable to provide for them, people have long turned to making ends meet by individually farming in hills and mountains, which the authorities initially
condoned in exchange for payment of land usage fees. However, the massive
cultivation of hills and mountains has exacerbated the North Korea’s chronic deforestation issue, which not only increases the risk of landslides but also contributes to a lack of water, of which supplies are far more ample in ravines.
To solve this issue and slow the damage, the state is increasing the fees people must pay to cultivate land in the mountains, but rather than accepting cash, crops are now the preferred legal tender. This is a bid to make the de facto tax seem less like one, which the Party eschews, perceiving it as a pivotal element of capitalist economies. This policy is severely at
odds with the people, who find cultivation in these regions as indispensable
for their sustenance.
The vast majority of people in farming
communities have managed to get by with the help of corn, sorghum, beans, and
other grains grown in mountainsides cultivated for personal use, according to
the source. However, with less arable grounds around mountain slopes and hills,
in the case of beans, it is hard to produce even 1 ton. As the source pointed out, after paying up 750kg to the state there would be nothing left to
keep.
“People are becoming increasingly
discontent because they believe the state has handed down such measures despite
knowing that residents rely on market sales or plot cultivation to get by and
are worried that they will lose their plots,” the source said, elaborating on how residents are reacting to this change. “It is
absurd for the government to demand so much payment in crops when it is not
even handing out rations properly,” others have said, according to the
source.
In the face of such complaints, related officials have in turn threatened these farmers, suggesting that they hand their
land over to its actual owner–the state. “The Party cadres of each county have even
mentioned among themselves that small plots will soon disappear with the state
reforestation projects,” he said.
“In 2009, officials from the county’s
People’s Committee determined that individual plots
should be 30 pyeong (roughly 100㎡) and took measurements
of the size of each plot,” the source explained. “At
the time, they confiscated all the land on mountain slopes aside from those in
the vicinity of individual homes, dealing a major blow to people’s
livelihoods.”
With mounting dissatisfaction among
residents, the state allowed people to occupy the land again for a fee of 300
KPW [0.03 USD] per pyeong starting in the spring of 2011–after the land sat abandoned for a
year. The recent raise in usage fees is thought to be a move to pressure people
to give up their plots, raising the fees rather than simply confiscating the land–a move that garnered significant backlash in the past.
