North Korean farmers are on the verge of tears because of a strange new farming policy from the Supreme Commander of the Agricultural Front, Kim Jong Il.
An inside source from Hamkyung, speaking on the phone with Daily NK on the 22nd, said “Last Friday, the 8th National Defense Chairman Kim Jong Il’s instruction regarding agriculture was sent to all the cadres in North Korea. The important point therein was that to strengthen the fertility of the soil despite the current lack of fertilizer, every household has to produce 500kg of grass manure by the end of August.”
However, according to the source, farmers say of this instruction that “Producing grass manure in the middle of August is unheard of, since the foundation of the Republic (North Korea). The higher-ups (Kim Jong Il) seem to have decided to ruin farming.”
In North Korea, farmers usually start producing grass manure from the end of June until the 20th of July. When they cover big piles of grass with soil, it decays and becomes good manure after 3 to 4 summer months. The grass manure that is thus produced is used the following March.
An inside source said “When you fertilize fields with late-production grass manure, the fields will turn into fields of weeds. This is because after the end of July seeds of grass ripen and do not easily rot. It is common sense for the farmers not to produce grass manure after it is in seed.”
He relayed some sullen words from farmers: “When it is time to weed the fields, we have to ask students to do it since we do not have weed-killer. Nevertheless, we can still see half weeds and half grain on the field. This instruction is much the same as filling grain fields with weeds.”
Among older farmers, some say “Definitely there are still people like ‘Seo Kwan Hee’ in the regime, as this kind of instruction shows.”
Seo Kwan Hee was the Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture in the mid 1990s, upon whom Kim Jong Il put the blame for the food shortage. Kim had him shot in 1997, after suspecting him of anti-regime activities. North Koreans still misunderstand Seo Kwan Hee to have been a “Spy of the U.S.” as regime propaganda claims.
The inside source confirmed the fact that obviously producing 500kg per household is an impossible task.
He said “To produce 500kg of grass manure, we need more than five tons of grass. A manager of a work unit whom I know also said ‘The government clearly does not know how much grass we need in order to produce 500kg of grass manure.”
The source said “They’ve organized a ‘Grass Manure Production Command Office’ in every provincial committee of the Party and are counting the production rate per city, company and people’s unit. There are competition tables near crowded places and the Agricultural Accounting Committee of the province checks the manure rate.”
He added “The cadres are following the order because it is the General’s but they secretly point out that ‘This is the reason why we are poor.’ Cadres are worried about next year’s farming…”
