[imText1]It was reported by the inner source that North Korean farms have finished fall harvest and has now started “extra grain collection.”
Lee Young Gab, a tradesman whom The DailyNK met on 26 of October in Dandung, China, said, “Compare to last year, farming this year improved but the cooperative farms are now busy in the “search of extra grain movement.” About the total amount of harvested grain reported by the international society, he said, “it is merely the expected amount of harvest.”
What it means by “extra grain” in North Korea is extra amount apart from the necessary amount for one year. For example, North Korean farmers need 700g of grain per day thus 250kg of grain per year. Although they have land distributed to them, with small farms on the mountains and front yard of their house, they end up having more than they need. The farmers sell extra food they have in the markets and buy daily necessities.
The government of North Korea calculates the small private lands on which farmers farm and collect the calculated amount of extra food. In return, they give farmers certificates with which the farmers can exchange with the necessary goods. This kind of extra grain collection is currently underway.
Lee explained the reason why the government started to collect extra grain is “because estimated agriculture production of the Agriculture Agency and total amount of train government holds must be met but as of now, it does not match.”
The Agriculture Agency of North Korea is a government department that produces food of the nation and the General Grain Office distributes the food. The Agriculture Agency often exaggerates estimated rates and results too and produces false reports. On the other hand, the General Grain Office tries its best to cut down the reported rate because the higher offices criticizes them saying “The Agriculture Agency always says the available amount of food exceeds the amount needed but the General Grain Office say there is not enough to distribute.” For this reason, there is always some friction between the two offices.
This year, though, the government of North Korea proclaimed that it would normalize the food distribution system. Since the distribution order comes down from the Party according to the estimated rate reported by the Agriculture Agency, the estimated rate must be met no matter what. For this reason the Agriculture Agency is expected to go after farmers to extract food from them.
Cho Dong Min, a North Korean farmer of a cooperative farm who came to Yanbian, China to visit relatives on October 23, said, “Although they (the government) say they will distribute to the workers, those ones who suffer in cost is the cooperative farm farmers.”
“Last year, they set amount of food needed as 700g per day (per person), but for this year, they first distributed food only for the first half of the year and stopped distribution saying they will have to see what happens.”
Currently, North Korea’s local Agriculture Management Committee and the Party cadres have formed “fall harvest battle Commanding Units,” that are sent to each cooperative farms to collect extra food from each of the individual household and examine all the private farms and front yard productions. “10% of all the food produced from the land that are not state owned is taken by the National Land Environment Protection Agency as tax,” added Cho.
