There are signs that an increasing number of North Koreans are interested in the cultivation of bananas and other fruits and vegetables typically grown in tropical or subtropical climates, Daily NK has learned.
Interest in banana farming among North Koreans began when a “grade one” factory in South Pyongyang Province started to distribute bananas it had cultivated to the factory’s daycare center and preschool, a Pyongyang-based source told Daily NK earlier today.
This factory began research into banana production in 2016 and, after a number of failures, ultimately identified a way to grow the fruit, according to the source, who requested anonymity for security reasons. He said that the factory succeeded in growing bananas in a greenhouse in 2018, but rumors about the factory’s success began to spread just this year.
A representative from a local collective farm along with officials from the Academy of Agricultural Science in Pyongyang reportedly visited the factory recently to ask about its banana cultivation methods. The source said that an increasing number of people in Pyongsong and Pyongyang are trying to learn about how to grow the fruit.
The factory seems to have succeeded in producing bananas because of global warming. Indeed, North Korea could not grow eggplant, watermelon and other similar fruits and vegetables up until the 1980s, but now – because of global warming – it can and does.
According to the source, farms in the country are also increasing their cultivation of strawberries. Indeed, vegetables and fruits typically grown in tropical environments seem to be increasingly the subject of “test cultivation” in North Korea.
“There are even people who are trying to produce tropical vegetables and fruits such as kiwi through relationships with [North Korean] research agencies,” the source said.
Some in the country are reportedly claiming that all of this shows how powerful the country’s “self-sufficiency” is in the face of international sanctions, which have blocked the country off from the wider global economy.
However, North Korea would still need a considerable amount of time to broaden the cultivation of bananas and other tropical or subtropical fruits. Bananas must be kept in temperatures of at least 15 degrees Celsius or above. Even in South Korea’s Jeju Island, which has a subtropical climate, farmers are forced to pay enormous amounts of money to ensure their bananas stay fresh.
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