North Korean sources report that as the country gears up for the harvest season, organized business groups are siphoning off fertilizer from the Hungnam Fertilizer Plant and selling it to established suppliers.
“The country’s fertilizer plants are full of tractors and other vehicles coming to pick up fertilizer,” said a North Hamgyong Province-based source on May 24. “The fertilizer from the Heungnam Fertilizer Plant is the best in the nation so agriculture-related groups from all around the country are bringing their vehicles to the plant to get as much as they can.”
The source said that laborers affiliated with local district administrative committees and the deputy directors of cooperative farms had been waiting since winter with fertilizer deposit slips in hand. “These individuals typically had few family members and were guaranteed rations while they stayed near the fertilizer plant,” the source added.
“These individuals have been waiting five or six months straight,” the source said. “It’s a reflection of the reality that there is no set order in which these groups receive fertilizer.”
North Korea’s production of fertilizer has been chronically insufficient given its lack of raw materials, unreliable electricity supply, and aging machinery. When the farming season rolls around each year, numerous groups bribe fertilizer factory officials or find ways of illegally siphoning off fertilizer from the plants.
There are also cases where cooperative farms secretly hide the corn or rice they harvest. These stores are then used for illicit deals with business people who siphon off fertilizer for their own operations.
There is danger lurking behind such illegal deals. The recently established “Anti-Socialist Group” (a government unit that cracks down on illegal activity) will, at the very least, seize all goods associated with these illegal deals, or at worst send those involved to prison for having “stolen state-manufactured fertilizer.”
There are many cases, however, where the authorities in charge of cracking down on illegal activities are bought off by business people, a separate source in North Hamgyong Province said.
“Fertilizer plant workers or businesspeople frequently work with the factory guards to siphon off fertilizer during the night,” she said. “There are even businesspeople who secure huge amounts of fertilizer by buying it cheap during the winter and holding it in storage facilities.”
The state has put the “Anti-Socialist Group” in charge of guarding the fertilizer plants to prevent fertilizer from being stolen, but bribes are enabling the stealing to continue.
Moreover, local police and security officials are involved directly and indirectly in the illegal sale of fertilizer.
“The police and other security officials promise the illegal traders that they will ‘watch their backs’ in exchange for a bribe. Without much power of their own, the traders have little choice but to pay the bribes,” an additional North Hamgyong-based source said, explaining that various forms of corruption are rampant during the farming season in North Korea and those without status or money are frequently unable to get the fertilizer they need to grow crops.
“Powerless farmers drink themselves drunk and complain about the situation,” he said.
“There are a lot of fights that break out due to the situation.”
