Officials from North Korea’s main government agencies and students from Pyongyang-based universities are being dispatched to agricultural areas in South Hwanghae Province to help farms that are slammed with work, Daily NK has learned.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a reporting partner in the province told Daily NK last Thursday that the officials and students were expected to help with transplanting rice seedlings and caring for fast-growing grains.
Farms in South Hwanghae Province have reached the point where the regular workers and currently assigned volunteers cannot transplant rice seedlings on top of watering and fertilizing the fast-growing grain fields three times a day.
The Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea has also been informed about the shortage of workers on wheat and barley farms, where the crops will soon be ready for harvest, Daily NK’s reporting partner said.
North Korean authorities are currently focused on agriculture in South Hwanghae Province, the country’s breadbasket, and are providing as much support as possible, including the equipment and machinery needed for rice transplanting.
But after being informed that the area under cultivation is too large to be managed by the current workforce, officials convened urgently to discuss what measures should be taken, the reporting partner said.
“The Central Committee has given emergency orders to rapidly deploy workers throughout South Hwanghae Province to address this issue and has ordered government agencies and universities in Pyongyang to devote all their resources on the issue.”
North Korea had earlier instructed South Hwanghae Province officials to assign fewer workers to farms that had received machinery. But since the emergency orders were issued, the new approach is for volunteers, and not regular staff, to handle the bulk of the farmwork.
The North Korean authorities have reportedly instructed regular workers on farms in South Hwanghae Province to concentrate on transplanting rice seedlings while the newly mobilized workers dedicate themselves to watering and fertilizing the fast-growing grain, which will soon ripen.
According to the reporting partner, North Korea has been underlining the need to help South Hwanghae Province fulfill its pledge to focus on agriculture as ordered by the government and serve as a model for the nation by bringing in a bumper crop in the fast-growing grain harvest.
“Lodgings are being set up throughout farms in South Hwanghae Province for all the volunteers who are coming down from the capital to help. The areas where fast-growing grain is being watered and fertilized and rice seedlings are being transplanted are crammed with volunteers,” he added.
Translated by David Carruth. Edited by Robert Lauler.
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