Ordinary citizens in North Korea are off to a busy start to the year, with the authorities ordering the people to procure quantities of fertilizer for the coming agricultural season.
A Daily NK source residing in northerly Yangkang Province confirmed that the regime is promoting 2014 as the year of “putting farming first,” and have been pestering the people right from the outset.
The source recounted, “Out of the blue, a people’s unit meeting was called last night where it was announced that in previous years, presenting a bribe may have bought you a fake certificate exempting you from fertilizer tasks, but that such certificates would not be recognized this time around.”
Citizens are supposed to produce fertilizer from the beginning of the year until March, but problems emerge when people cannot take time out from trade, the main means of survival for many. They are faced with no choice but to present the relevant farm management committee with a bribes of alcohol or even money in a bid to exempt themselves, the source explained. Presumably in anticipation of such moves, the authorities have decreed that fertilizer now be delivered in person.
“Last year the production quota for each household was a total of 1.5 tons of (human) excrement, animal manure and humus. This year they have raised the quota to 700kg of excrement and one ton of humus. Humus can be procured from communal areas, but people are at a loss as to where they are supposed to source that much excrement.”
“Students on vacation are also sourcing fertilizer. They are loading it onto sleds and taking it to the nearest farm,” the source went on, before adding, “Some workplaces are issuing threats to their workers, saying, ‘If you don’t bring a sack full of fertilizer when you come into work, you’ll be marked as absent without leave.’”
These new developments echo Kim Jong Eun’s New Year’s Address, where he promised a greater focus on the farming sector in order to “achieve economic construction and improve the lives of the people.”
However, “The tasks designated to the people are burdensome, and mobilization for farm work can only be more frequent than last year. They are driving home the importance of producing fertilizer, while in the same breath heralding the bumper harvest year.”
“Last year there were a lot of people who planned to just steal excrement (to meet their quota). This year it’s sure to get even worse,” the source predicted, before explaining that, “Some attendees at the people’s unit meeting were saying they were just going to out to a farming village to buy it. Others made snide remarks: ‘Don’t you have to eat in order to produce it anyway?’ and ‘So much is demanded of us, even though we don’t get anything at all.’”
