While the North Korean authorities continue to push the bunjo [cooperative farm production unit] system, residents, on the other hand, are largely focusing on cultivating individual plots. According to sources within the country, this is because after failing to see the increased allotment of production under the nascent system, discontent with the state's hollow promises has spread rapidly among the population.

��As preparations for spring cultivation are in full swing, people feel that individual farming is far more of a priority than collective farming. It's a major shift from last year,�� a source from Yangkang Province reported to Daily NK on April 13th. ��With spring upon us, more households are facing decreased food supplies, so groups of residents have been gathering together to commiserate and mull over the matter together.�� 

North Korea stipulated in its ��June 28th Measures,�� announced in 2012, plans for the state to establish a ��new economic management system in its own style.�� Under the new system, production units on cooperative farms shrank from groups of 10 to 25, to smaller factions [pojeon] of 4 to 6 members. The state receives 70% of the target production, with farmers taking 30% and any surplus if targets are exceeded.

However, the source asserted that collective farm workers feel that ��nothing has changed,�� despite toiling under the bunjo system in anticipation of more food to take home. Many point out that the state exploited the concentrated efforts by ��taking a larger portion of the harvest for itself.�� This unfortunate conclusion, then, has compelled many to focus their efforts on yielding the best harvest possible through individual farming instead.

Two consecutive years of shortcomings underpin this movement. Allotment per worker on a collective farm last year in Yangkang Province should have been 187kg of the harvest; the actual allocation, however, came to merely 90kg -- less than half of the promised amount. In 2013, the government had announced that workers were to receive 174kg, but each person received only 60kg.

��As the state fails year after year to distribute a fare share to the workers, motivation among collective farmers continues to decline,�� he explained, adding that the high hopes the bunjo system once instilled in people have largely fizzled out, only to be replaced with more misgivings.

He went on to say that the state's failures have given way to a population that "no longer believes in state policies," and is fully aware that the state "simply hides behind excuses of 'aid to the military, shortfalls of production targets, and purchasing seeds for the next harvest'" to explain away its broken promises. "We're not going to be fooled again this year," the source noted.

��Even the Party members who are categorized as the the farms�� core members are encouraging personal farming, saying, ��You have to be able to make ends meet before you show loyalty to the Party,'" he said. "Younger people have joked that the slogan--reading 'Farming Above All Else!'-- plastered on the front of the agricultural propaganda and management committee facilities-- would be more realistic if it were preceded by 'individual.'" 

*The content of this article was broadcast to the North Korean people via Unification Media Group.