Following the recent publication of a UN report stating that North Korea’s food situation is critical and is set to worsen, sources in the country say that efforts for agricultural preparation are facing obstacles in some regional areas.
The DPRK Rapid Food Security Assessment was published by the World Food Program and Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations on May 3, and expressed concern that North Korea could face severe food shortages within the next ten years due to climate change, sanctions and other issues.
“May is the most important month because it is the period that determines whether the year’s harvest will end in success or failure. There’s a lack of workers for planting and this has led to alarm amongst officials,”a South Pyongan Province-based source told Daily NK. “Officials in the major west coast farming areas of Pyongwon, Sukchon and Mundok are concerned about labor shortages.”
North Korea conducts national agricultural support campaigns every spring and mobilizes students, office workers and housewives into the fields. This year, however, the country is facing a labor shortage of more than 50%, according to the source.
“Mobilization orders state that people have to prepare their own food to eat out in the fields,” he said. “Concerns have been raised that there’s a lot of people who can’t do that because there’s no food.”
The North Korean authorities are emphasizing the need to increase rice production and the importance of agriculture through state-run media as the planting season begins, but mobilizing workers into the fields will be difficult due to the country’s poor economic situation.
Concerns have also been raised that laborers will refuse to work in the fields because they are already involved in manure collection activities, construction projects and other labor-intensive work for the state.
Daily NK recently reported that even one of Kim Jong Un’s banner projects, the Samjiyon modernization effort, is facing labor-related difficulties.
The authorities have even created “emergency measures committees” to identify ways to forcibly mobilize residents onto the fields.
“Labor departments in provincial agriculture business committees have formed emergency measures committees to deal with the lack of workers recruited from factories and schools,” said a separate source in South Pyongan Province. “Schools and factories are being investigated and will face legal action if they fail to provide the proper quotas of labor.”
Some parts of the country are faced with issues in agricultural planting stemming from insufficient supplies of farming materials and fertilizer.
“Farmers should have ensured the soil didn’t freeze by creating special seedbeds and covering them with vinyl film. They failed to do so because there was a lack of vinyl film available this year and seeds didn’t grow properly because of the cold,” she said, adding that “they also lacked manure and fertilizer.”
In its report, the UN’s FAO noted that “restrictions on the importation of certain items that are necessary for agricultural production, in particular fuel, machinery and spare parts for equipment, negatively impacted agricultural production,” and that the “2018 national supply of phosphate was between 50-70% below the five-year average.”
“There was enough fertilizer and manure to plant cool-bed seeds last year, but this year the combined lack of fertilizer and manure has led to few of the seeds surviving. There are a lot of farms that have planted seeds on the bare ground,” a separate source in South Pyongan Province said.
“The lack of fertilizer and manure means that seeds are not growing properly, but cooperative farms have failed to find measures to remedy the issue.”
