South Hwanghae Province recently dispatched local party and government officials to city and county farms to ascertain difficulties farms are facing ahead of the planting season, Daily NK has learned.
“Officials from provincial, city and county party committees and government agencies were dispatched to provide scientific and technical farming guidance for the spring planting campaign and to ascertain difficulties on farms ahead of planting and file detailed comprehensive reports,” a reporting partner in South Hwanghae Province told Daily NK on Monday, speaking on condition of anonymity due to security concerns.
According to the reporting partner, South Hwanghae Province’s party committee told agricultural guidance officers not to file false reports about conditions on the ground, calling on them to work with the provincial party committee to overcome difficulties by accurately depicting the problems they see.
The provincial party committee complained that farms “have hardly produced any good results as of late” because officials lie “to avoid taking the vital responsibility of achieving party policy,” and warned them against abandoning tasks after a sudden, brief show of enthusiasm rather than persistently working on them.
The committee also called on South Hwanghae Province to take the national lead in sparking a “new revolution in grain production” in accordance with the ideology laid out by the recent Seventh Enlarged Meeting of the Eighth Central Committee.
According to the reporting partner, the secretary general of the provincial party committee said the “provincial party committee will directly involve itself in irrigation, fertilizer, seeds and even seedbeds,” and that he himself will take direct responsibility for a particular farm, connecting with and taking care of the farmers and work teams on the dozens of fields and lots in his area of interest.
The provincial party committee also said the biggest gift to — and highest wish of — the people was for Workers’ Party and government officials to resolve the people’s food problems by heading to farms themselves and leading by example.
It called on officials from all local party and government agencies to head to farms “with the mindset of university graduates experiencing reality or army corps commanders experiencing the life of their warriors” and directly witness reality on the ground and look after the farms as if they were their own homes.
The reporting partner said the secretary general called for the end of the “era of eating corn” and for the Workers’ Party to take the lead in achieving “the agricultural doctrine of the new age, the age of the Supreme Leader,” with people living affluent lives with meals of boiled rice and flour-based foods.
Officials from all provincial, city and county party and government agencies have responded to the provincial party committee’s order by heading to the farms to which they have been allotted and are currently ascertaining the situation on the ground, the reporting partner added.
Translated by David Black. Edited by Robert Lauler.
Daily NK works with a network of reporting partners who live inside North Korea. 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.
