SEOUL, March 2 (Portal) – North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ordered infrastructure improvements and the expansion of farmland to boost food production, state media said on Thursday amid warnings of an imminent food crisis.
Kim issued instructions to renew irrigation systems, build modern farm machinery and create more farmland as he closed the seventh expanded plenary session of the ruling Labor Party’s powerful Central Committee on Wednesday.
The meeting started on Sunday to discuss the “urgent” task of improving the agricultural sector.
South Korea has warned of a deepening food crisis in the isolated north, including a recent spike in starvation deaths in some regions, partly due to the failure of a new grain policy restricting private crop transactions.
North Korea’s economy has been hit by floods and typhoons, sanctions over its nuclear and missile programs and a sharp drop in trade with China amid border closures and COVID-19 lockdowns.
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South Korea’s Rural Development Agency estimated that the north’s crop production fell nearly 4% last year from a year earlier, citing heavy summer rains and other economic conditions.
Kim laid out plans and specific tasks to build “rich and highly civilized socialist rural communities with advanced technology and modern civilization,” official KCNA news agency said.
He ordered the overhaul of the irrigation system to cope with climate change, the production of efficient agricultural machinery to modernize production, and the reclamation of tidal flats to expand agricultural land, KCNA said.
A lack of adequate agricultural infrastructure, machinery and supplies, including fertilizers and fuel, has made North Korea more vulnerable to natural disasters, experts say.
The mountainous country has also attempted to expand farmland by clearing tidal flats along its west coast since the 1980s, but previous efforts have failed in part due to poor engineering and maintenance.
Reclamation projects have been relatively more successful under Kim, but with slow progress in converting coastal mudflats into fertile farmland, they have done little to alleviate food shortages, the US-based Project 38 North said in late 2021.
“The state media report says they have set new goals and action plans, but I don’t see anything new as all elements including irrigation and reclamation have been addressed before,” said Lim Eul-chul, professor of North Korean studies at Kyungnam University in South Korea.
Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, also noted that the report did not propose any new ideas or a possible change in grain policies that blamed South Korea for the food shortages.
KCNA said Kim stressed the need to tighten discipline in implementing the economic plan, warned against “practices designed to weaken the cabinet’s organizational and executive powers,” and ordered all party units to “have their work efficiency checked.”
The Central Committee also discussed ways to improve the country’s financial management, KCNA reported, without elaborating.
Reporting by Hyonhee Shin; Edited by Stephen Coates and Lincoln Feast.
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