As usual, North Korea is pushing its people to produce manure in the early days of the new year.
A source in North Hamgyong Province told Daily NK on Friday that the authorities in Hoeryong ordered factories, enterprises and neighborhood watch units in the city to supply “300 kilograms of manure” per person as part of the “first campaign of the year.”
According to the source, North Korea’s government issued a general mobilization order to each region late last year that 1) set the period of the first campaign of the new year and 2) called for the production of manure.
North Korea began last year’s manure struggle campaign from Jan. 4, but this year, manure production efforts started two days earlier, on Jan. 2.
Many North Koreans are unhappy because, essentially, the government is inauspiciously “telling them to smell dung from the first day of the year,” the source said.
North Korea has long imported fertilizer from China as domestically produced fertilizer is insufficient in both quantity and quality.
However, the country has experienced trouble importing fertilizer since it closed the national borders in the wake of COVID-19.
The authorities have, in turn, annually increased how much manure North Koreans must produce.
In fact, in Hoeryong, local residents were told to produce 150 kilograms of manure per household in 2021, 200 kilograms in 2022 and 300 kilograms this year. Meanwhile, students were told to produce 200 kilograms per person – 50 kilograms more than last year. Not to be left out, workers at factories and enterprises were told to produce 500 kilograms of manure per person.
As far as workers are concerned, the amount of manure demanded by the government is the same as last year; however, it is 200 kilograms more than quotas demanded by the regime before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“People are complaining more than ever because the authorities are raising manure quotas every year and urging manure production, even though it’s hard to produce the stuff,” the source said.
People are complaining even more about the large quotas due to rumors that provincial, city and county cadres will be going around to directly monitor manure production and reporting the results to the central government, he added.
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