A second straight year of springtime drought is hindering farming preparations in North Korea, Daily NK has learned.
“This year’s drought is similar or a little worse than the one last year,” a reporting partner in South Pyongan Province told Daily NK on Thursday, speaking on condition of anonymity. “It’s hard to raise crops if spring rains fall even a little short, and now, dust clouds are rising from the fields and paddies are dry, so farmers can’t plant seeds right away.”
He added: “Reservoirs are too low because the drought continues on and on, a state of affairs that has led to problems.”
In the face of growing water shortages due to drought, North Korean authorities appear busy drawing up measures to acquire irrigation water.
Rodong Sinmun wrote on Monday that “preparations must be preemptively made to deal with drought, such as creating and filling water pockets, rather than relaxing just because one has created groundwater facilities.” The newspaper added: “Realistic measures must be studied to reduce damage from drought or floods.”
However, the measures put forth by the North Korean authorities offer little actual help in resolving the problem, the reporting partner claimed.
“Farming is ruined if there’s no water, and if the farming is ruined, farmers can’t survive. Contrary to what news outlets say, there’s no way you can resolve water shortages by building irrigation facilities, and the same goes for the [government] order to make water pockets in rivers and streams or [government] instructions to place a priority on supply electricity to irrigation activities.
“Pyongsong and Sunchon usually draw water from the Taedong River, while Anju, Sukchon, Mundok and Pyongwon draw water from the Chongcheon River-South Pyongan River Irrigation Waterway, local streams or Taesong Lake, but these waterways don’t help farming because they flow naturally without electricity or water pumps.”
The reporting partner also pointed out that it is difficult for farmers to carry water on their back, saying that “farmers say they wish they had mobile water pumps so that they didn’t have to carry water on their backs.”
North Koreans are also anxious about having enough water for drinking and other uses at home.
“Wells are lowering because of the drought, and people have access to tap water maybe three or four days a week at most,” the reporting partner told Daily NK. “To deal with the drought, most people use groundwater, drawing up the water with manual pumps, digging standing pools or drawing water from pools in springs or wetlands.”
Translated by David Carruth. Edited by Robert Lauler.
Daily NK works with a network of reporting partners who live inside North Korea and China. 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.
Please direct any comments or questions about this article to dailynkenglish@uni-media.net.
