In early September, North Korea ordered officials from the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party and government ministries to “fully mobilize” to support agricultural communities during the autumn harvest, Daily NK has learned.
According to a Daily NK source in North Korea on Thursday, North Korea’s leadership issued the order on Sept. 15. In particular, the authorities called on officials to “smoothly conclude the rice harvest and delayed corn harvest by the end of October to bring the year’s farming to a successful end.”
Officials from the Central Committee and government ministries responded to the order by mobilizing to help with the harvest at collective farms on the outskirts of Pyongyang and in neighboring North Hwanghae Province and South Pyongan Province from Sept. 19.
North Korea has been mobilizing even central government and ministerial officials during the spring and autumn harvest periods since the early 1990s, calling on “everyone who lifts a spoonful of rice to come together to support agricultural villages.”
However, since officials at major central government institutions cannot leave their posts for long stretches of time like workers at ordinary factories and enterprises, the country’s authorities are mobilizing them on a one-day, five-day or 10-day basis. High-ranking cadres ranked bureau director or above are being mobilized for one-day tours on the farms on account of their existing duties, said the source.
In fact, Central Committee and government ministry officials have recently been harvesting and transporting rice at a collective farm in Taedong County, South Pyongan Province, but with officials mobilized only on a one-day, five-day or 10-day basis, they are reportedly providing no real help to the farmers.
According to the source, the cadres arrived on the farm at 10 AM and returned home after finishing work by 6 PM, while government ministry officials ranked section chief and below spent five to 10 days lodging at the farm to help with the harvest. Since their mobilizations ended before they had gotten used to the farm work, their efforts yielded few results.
In particular, ministerial officials simply passed the time in the fields before returning to their rooms, while Central Committee cadres likewise spent more time talking than working. “If you’ve come to the farm, you should work,” complained local farmers, according to the source. “Did you come for a stroll?”
Some locals lamneted that, “When you compare the shriveled farmers breaking their backs farming with the big-bellied, smooth-faced cadres from Pyongyang, it’s like looking at landlords and their farmhands.”
“Fat cadres can’t do much work,” the source told Daily NK. “Even the government is promoting that the Central Committee and ministerial officials mobilized for the autumn harvest have been providing agricultural supplies such as needed fertilizer or farm machinery, concerning itself more with issues of supply of material goods than actual work.”
Meanwhile, workers at factories and enterprises in Pyongyang have been entirely mobilized for the autumn harvest, too, the source said.
In a front-page editorial on Sept. 28, Rodong Sinmun implored “all officials, party members and workers to come together as one to take part in harvesting and threshing,” calling on them to successfully conclude this year’s farming by completing the harvesting and threshing as quickly as possible, “wasting not even a single gain.”
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