North Korean agricultural policy and South Korea’s plans for farming complex development

At her 2014 New Year’s Planning Press
Conference, President Park Geun Hye commented that unification would bring
about a veritable “bonanza,” indicating that her core governing task would
be to establish a foundation for a unified Korea. This year, she says that she
will strengthen humanitarian support and expand nongovernmental exchange to
work towards eliminating the suffering and hardships of the North Korean
people. 

In March of 2014, at a presentation
“planning the peaceful reunification of the Korean peninsula” at Dresden
University of Technology in Germany, she offered three suggestions for
North-South cooperative exchange: 1) a humanitarian agenda, 2) a focus on
co-prosperity and, 3) integration between the people of both Koreas. She said
that co-prosperity in particular must be cultivated with “North-South
co-prosperity human infrastructure,” pushing for the creation of “agricultural
complexes” that would allow for the joint development of agriculture,
livestock, and forestry.
 

As a new model of joint cooperation between
North and South Korea, the business of agricultural complexes goes beyond
humanitarian aid, signifying total assistance in the lives of North Korean
citizens. In particular, it allows North and South Korea to use dialogue to
collaborate on North Korea’s agricultural needs. Additionally, the use of human
infrastructure improves the living conditions of North Koreans, directly
affecting citizens’ lives.
 

Correspondingly, by collaborating on
agricultural technology and foundations of production, we can improve
agricultural productivity; with the transfer of livestock technology, we can
improve the nutritional conditions of North Koreans; and with forestry, we can
prevent deforestation and predatory insects, giving us hope for the
preservation and recuperation of our indigenous forests’ ecosystems.
 

Not only would this plan allow North Korea
to establish a foundation for independent agriculture, a possible turning point
towards economic reform and an open economy, it would also be an opportunity
for South Korea to lessen the risk that North Korea poses on its economy. It
would help develop a sense of trust between the two Koreas, allowing them to
benefit each other financially through the revitalization of trade and a market
economy. Additionally, the growth of human exchange through North-South
cooperation would greatly contribute to recognition of the similarities between
North and South Korea.
 

According to data from the National
Statistics Office, the 10 types of products traded between North and South
Korea are divided by product makeup, and among those 10, agricultural and
marine products from North Korea have represented the largest share of
trade–over 50 percent since before the 2000s. With the creation of mixed
farming complexes, trade of agricultural products should be focused on the
trade of staple goods between China and North and South Korea.
 

Therefore, if North and South Korea promote
internal trade of products they are currently importing from China– brown
rice, nonglutinous rice, cabbage, kimchi, and garlic to South Korea and barley,
corn, and rice to North Korea– this would greatly contribute to the
revitalization of North-South exchange. In other words, North Korea could
consider sending seeds, soybeans, and corn to South Korea, with rice, flour,
and garlic being sent vice-versa.
 

What’s most important to consider in the
development of mixed farming complexes is that they must not be overly
sensitive to internal and external environmental changes, instead continuously
pushing towards the agricultural cooperation that North Korea wants. The idea
should expand not just in the short term, but also in the long term;
metaphorically speaking, we should stretch the initial point of cooperation
into a line, and that line into a surface for trade between North and South
Korea. In the short term, we can consider first placing a sample complex in a
location that North Korea requests or in a special economic zone in the name of
North-South cooperation, and afterwards create cooperative complexes in
low-income areas. Long term, we should cooperate to ensure that North Korea can
continue to run the complexes independently.
 

The creation of mixed agricultural
complexes will solve North Korean citizens’ food security problems and improve
their quality of life, corresponding with North Korea’s continued agricultural
policy. It will also provide emergency humanitarian assistance to those
suffering from the effects of environmental disasters such as droughts and
floods, and by improving agricultural productivity, it will lead to an increase
in the income of farmers and act as a turning point towards a domestic market
and market activity in North Korea.
 

Solving the issue of food security will
greatly contribute to food self-sufficiency, and, looking forward, resolve the
instability between North and South Korea; we can also expect that through
agricultural cooperation, the magnitude of agricultural exchange will increase.
 

For two years (from 2013 to 2015), North
Korea presented extensively on five special economic zones and 20 provincial
economic development zones, attempting to attract investment, but due to a lack
of corresponding laws and economic sanctions by the U.N. and the United States,
it has not been able to do so. However, announcement of these provincial
development zones can be seen as a result of policy decisions by North Korean
authorities to actively develop each province through investment capital. If
North Korea truly wants to improve the quality of life of its citizens through
agricultural reform, then it must ignore political disagreements and actively
respond to our plans for mixed agricultural complexes.
 

*Views expressed in Guest Columns do not necessarily reflect those of Daily NK.