Amid signs of worsening food shortages in North Korea, the country’s government recently convened an enlarged plenary meeting of the Workers’ Party Central Committee to hold intensive discussions on raising agricultural production.
However, the meeting simply reemphasized the government’s slogan about attaining grain production goals while putting forth no clear measures for doing so.
Rodong Sinmun and other official media reported Thursday that in his concluding speech at the Seventh Enlarged Plenary Meeting of Eighth Central Committee, which ran from Feb. 26 to March 1, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un “ardently called for attaining this year’s grain production goal without fail and successfully achieving the long-term objectives of agricultural development for the sake of the comprehensive development in socialist construction and the self-dependence of the state and well-being of the people.”
In particular, in his speech titled, “On the Immediate Tasks Arising in This Year’s Farming and the Long-term Objectives for Agricultural Development,” the North Korean leader presented specific plans to expand agricultural output, namely perfecting irrigation systems in the period of the five-year plan by dynamically pushing ahead with irrigation construction, producing and supplying high-efficiency agricultural machinery and reclaiming tidelands and expanding farmland.
However, not only do the suggestions differ little from plans presented at previous meetings, but it was even hard to find anything unique about them since they simply amounted to what the Workers’ Party had been pushing all along.
In a telephone call with Daily NK, Korea Rural Community Corporation researcher Kim Kwan-ho said that with North Korean authorities publicly saying they were convening a meeting to hold intensive discussions about agriculture, he expected they might present particular agriculture measures or policies, “but they turned out to be the things they’ve continuously talking about during the fifth and sixth enlarged plenary meetings.”
“The meeting was convened to search for solutions to agricultural issues, but it failed to even identify clues to finding solutions.”
With trade held up due to international sanctions and the COVID-driven border closure, the meeting presented measures to resolve agricultural shortcoming with North Korea’s own resources alone – simply a repeat of plans emphasized in the past.
However, it is worth noting that the North Korean authorities did put the perfecting and installation of irrigation facilities at the top of its priority list. Domestically sourcing fertilizer, plastic film and other agricultural supplies is tough for North Korea, but the country can produce some results on its own by building irrigation facilities.
In January, Daily NK reported that immediately after the sixth plenary meeting in early January, the party committee of Hoeryong, North Hamgyong Province, gathered party committee officials for an intensive discussion on resolving agricultural irrigation issues to implement the plenary session’s decisions.
Daily NK also reported last month — quoting a reporting partner in North Hamgyong Province — that just before the seventh expanded plenary meeting, North Korea ordered meeting participants to prepare materials, calling irrigation facilities that work no matter what the climatic conditions “the most important issue.”
The Korea Rural Community Corporation’s Kim said the North Korean authorities appear to be focusing on preventing harm from abnormal climate conditions and natural disasters.
“Because irrigation facilities reduce damage from droughts, floods and typhoons and are absolutely necessary to boost the efficiency of reclaimed farmland, it seems the authorities are making the perfecting of irrigation facilities a higher priority than before in efforts to resolve agricultural issues,” he said.
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT PLANS ALSO EMPHASIZED DURING MEETING
North Korea also made “discipline for implementing the national economic plan” and “improving the state financial work” major agenda items of the latest meeting.
For example, Kim Jong Un stated during the meeting that “once the national economic plan is worked out, no one has the right to change it,” and called for all party organizations to “intensify the struggle against the practices of weakening the organizational and executive power of the Cabinet, the economic headquarters of the country, and thoroughly orient and subordinate Party work to the implementation of the Party’s policies.”
For the third agenda item, “improving the national financial administration and finances,” Premier Kim Tok Hun issued a report which called for “strengthening the country’s financial foundation and financial discipline, improving banking and putting the state financial system on a more scientific basis, all of which will render financial support to the comprehensive development of the Korean-style socialist construction.”
Professor Lim Eul-Chul of Kyungnam University’s Institute for Far Eastern Studies said it was worth noting how the meeting dealt not just with agriculture and agricultural villages, but also major issues in economic development.
“[The authorities] are saying that they adopted decisions that reflect new struggle goals and implementation plans to carry out fundamental revolutions and realistic transformational development in agricultural production and economic construction, but just based on what has been reported, I can’t find any new goals or strategies or specific implementation plans.”
Translated by David Black. Edited by Robert Lauler.
Daily NK works with a network of reporting partners who live inside North Korea. Their identities remain anonymous due to security concerns. More information about Daily NK’s reporting partner network and information gathering activities can be found on our FAQ page here.
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