How about some facts?
***** THE AGRICULTURAL SITUATION OF NORTH KOREA Woon-Keun Kim Research Director, Center for North Korea Agriculture, Korea Rural Economic Institute 4-102, Hoigi-Dong, Dongdaemun-Ku, Seoul 130-710, Korea
1999-09-01
...LAND TENURE SYSTEM
In North Korea, most economic decisions are made by the central government, in the form either of economic plans or specific instructions. Agricultural policies have been closely linked with the national goals of a series of economic plans formulated by the government. All decisions concerning production targets, distribution of outputs, allocation of inputs, prices and marketing were made according to these plans.
One of the first acts of the North Korean government after it was established in 1946 was land reform. Under the Land Reform Act, nearly 54% of cultivated land in private ownership was confiscated. All land holdings held under continuous tenancy or in excess of 5 ha (12.3 acres) was also confiscated. By August 1958, all individual peasant farmers had been absorbed into the newly created collectives.
Immediately after the completion of collectivization, a major program was launched to expand the scale of farming. The government considered that the prevailing size of collectives was too small to realize economies of scale, particularly for the use of farm machinery. Farm mechanization was regarded as one of the most powerful ways of transforming traditional farming into a modern system. All collectives, which so far had been based on the traditional village unit, were merged to make a single collective in each Ri (the smallest administrative unit, equivalent to a district). As a result, the number of collectives fell from more than 50,000 to only 4,000, while their average size expanded to around 500 ha, each containing about 300 farm households. Today, the average farm size in North Korea is 466 ha (1,151 acres). Each farm is operated by 80 - 300 farm families.
Cooperative farms account for 90% of cultivated land and agricultural production, and state farms for 10%. State farms are model farms run as industrial enterprises. They are generally larger and more highly mechanized than collectives, and are also managed more efficiently. The management of collective farms is in the hands of management committees made up of agricultural and technical experts. The committee sets production quotas, allocates resources, determines and disburses wages, monitors credit and directs the use of seeds, tractors and fertilizers. The collective farms have also developed the Chongsan-ni method of management, a personalized, on-the-spot guidance method which requires management committees to help farmers to improve production through incentives and other encouragement.
Along with the expansion of farms into larger units, non-agricultural institutions such as health clinics, elementary schools, kindergartens, and community dining halls were established on each cooperative farm. Individual farmers were given small private plots to cultivate for themselves. The size of plots is limited to 30-50 pyong (100-170 m2), depending on the size of the family. Farmers are allowed to grow vegetables, fruit trees and other cash crops, and to raise poultry, pigs and bees, both for consumption at home and for sale at farmer's markets....
THE AGRICULTURAL SITUATION IN NORTH KOREA
Available Land
The total area of North Korea is 12.0 million ha. Of this, 75% is hilly or mountainous. The remaining 1.96 million ha (16.3%) is arable, with 320 thousand ha being for perennial crops such as mulberry and fruit. The area of arable land per person in 1999 was only 0.091 ha.
Two-thirds of the arable land is found in four western provinces, (North Pyongan, South Pyongan, North Hwanghae and South Hwanghae), while the three provinces fronting the Yellow Sea contain 60% of the nation's paddy fields. (see Fig. 1.). One-fourth of the arable land is contained in the three provinces of the eastern region (North Hamgyong, South Hamgyong, and Kangwon). The interior region (the provinces of Chagang and Ryanggang) is mountainous, dry and cold, but rich in forest resources.
Farm Population
According to FAO data, the total population of North Korea in 1997 was 22.8 million, of whom 29.6% are involved in agricultural production. This percentage is much lower than in 1965, when 40.8% of the population was agricultural.
Farm labor accounts for about 40% of the total labor force in North Korea, which is higher than the 11% in the South. The rather low labor productivity in the North is because the country uses outside labor such as students and soldiers at planting and harvest. A major problem is that as in South Korea, the average age of full-time farmers is fairly high.
Irrigation and Drainage
Water conservation is very important, especially in rice-growing regions. North Korea has a slogan: "Irrigation is the lifeblood of agriculture and without irrigation, there is no increase in productivity."
Since North Korea has 70-80% of its total annual precipitation in the two summer months of July and August, water must be stored to minimize water stress in crops during the rest of the year. For this reason, North Korea has emphasized irrigation from its first development plan in 1957-60. The irrigation system extended even into mountainous areas. Reports showed that almost 100% of paddy fields were irrigated and 60% of upland fields. Substantial investments were made into reservoirs, canals and pumping stations.
As part of its irrigation network, North Korea has constructed 80,000 artificial lakes, 1,700 reservoirs, 25,210 pumping stations, 124,000 groundwater facilities and 40,000 km of flumes. Irrigation projects on the western coast for rice-growing areas established a 100-kilometer-long waterway, with tunnels 40 km long and ditches 60 km in length. It is reported that in all but 300,000 ha of irrigated land, water must be pumped up from rivers, often to a considerable height. However, nowadays there is some doubt whether the irrigation system is still fully functional. Many watersheds in mountainous areas have been damaged and some irrigation facilities have been destroyed by floods.
Fertilizer
In 1947, North Korea was able to produce 300,000 mt of chemical fertilizers. However, some factories were destroyed during the Korean War, after which North Korea had to import fertilizers from the Soviet Union. A decree of 1961 promoted the production and use of chemical fertilizers. As a result of this decree, domestic production of fertilizers increased.
North Korea produced 300,000 mt in 1970, 460,000 mt in 1975 and 850,000 mt in 1990. It is estimated that North Korea has a production capacity of 3.5 million mt (2 million mt of nitrogenous fertilizer, and 1.5 million mt of phosphate fertilizer). The target of the Third Seven-Year Plan (1985-1992) was to increase the application rate to an average of 2.5 mt/ha. The increase in the use of chemical fertilizers was one of the main reasons for the steady rise in grain yields in North Korea during the 1980s.
However, the recent economic difficulties have led to a decline in both fertilizer use and grain yields. The Ministry of Agriculture of North Korea is asking farmers to produce compost from crop residues and barnyard manure, but according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the World Bank, and FAO, fertilizer production has fallen since 1990. According to the North Korean Ministry of Agriculture, in 1997 North Korea used 600,000 mt of nitrogenous fertilizers. In the western rice granary areas, average application rates are 300 - 400 kg/ha. In upland fields in mountainous areas, application rates are 200 - 250 kg/ha. These application rates are much lower than those of the 1980s, when 600 - 800 kg/ha of chemical fertilizers were applied.
The most serious problem of the fertilizer industry in North Korea is a lack of balance in applied nutrients. Nitrogen is overused, while much of the phosphate fertilizer used is available only through imports. Urea and ammonium sulphate are produced at a sufficient level to meet demand.
In recent years, efforts have been made to introduce varieties that require little chemical fertilizer but still give a reasonable yield. The use of microbial fertilizers is being expanded, to reduce dependence on chemical fertilizers, while arable land is being given a soil amendment of rich alluvial deposits from rivers to replenish the topsoil. Sixty specialized production plants have been put into operation to produce soil-fertility-enhancing bacteria, using technology that requires only a low energy input.
Machinery
North Korea began a program to mechanize farming in 1960....However, the average field size is too small for 25-35 hp tractors. If tractors of this size are to be used efficiently, the average field size needs to be enlarged to about two-thirds of a hectare.
Farm mechanization has shown much progress since the 1970s. The number of tractors, an indicator of mechanization, increased from 9,000 in 1960 to 75,000 in 1997. Similarly, the number of tractors per 100 ha increased from 11 in 1970 to 37 in 1997. Mechanization has greatly contributed to grain production in North Korea. However, the number of farm machines in operation has declined since 1994, due to a shortage of fuel and spare parts as a result of the economic crisis.
Seed Supply and Pest Control
Seed production in North Korea is the responsibility of the Ministry of Agriculture. Research, plant breeding and pure line development are carried out by the Academy of Agricultural Sciences.
The development of high-yielding varieties has been very important in the development of modern food production in North Korea, as it has been elsewhere in the world. Disease-resistant, high-yielding dwarf varieties have been developed and extended to farmers.
The quality of crop seeds in the North is excellent, although this fact is not recognized abroad. However, North Korea has climatic limitations. The frost-free growing period is short, and the climate is very cold for rice production. Thus, North Korean scientists have developed varieties suited to the local climate and altitude. North Korea's climate precludes double-cropping of rice in most areas, so that different methods have had to be devised to increase productivity. One method is to use cold-bed seedlings. Farmers plant rice seedlings in protected dry beds, enabling them to begin growing their rice crop before the normal cropping season....
In rice paddies, the rice water weevil is potentially the most serious pest affecting production. The pest was first identified in 1988, and has periodically damaged rice since then. The most serious damage occurred in 1992, reducing production by 20%. Since then, the levels of damage have been much lower.
North Korea has been relying on imports for the necessary pesticides. It is assumed that a decrease in imported chemicals due to the economic crisis after 1992 has had some effect on agricultural production....
CURRENT FOOD PROBLEMS
The Grain Supply
Grain production in North Korea was only 1.9 million mt in 1946, but had risen to 10 million mt in 1984 - a five-fold increase in less than 40 years. This must be compared with the fact that during the same period, South Korea's grain production increased only 2.5 times.
The goal of grain production in the Six-Year Economic Plan, which ended in 1976, was 8 million tons. The goal in the Second Seven-Year Plan, ending in 1984, was 10 million tons. North Korean authorities announced that these goals had been met.
In 1995, the North Korean authorities announced that the grain production for that year was only 3.76 million mt. According to the Ministry of Unification in Seoul, North Korea's grain demand in 1998/99 was 6.5 million mt, while production was 3.8 million mt.
North Korea has suffered natural disasters every year throughout the 1990s, and the shortage of grain is estimated to be around 3 million mt each year. North Korea has been importing grain from abroad in order to overcome this problem (see Table 3).
Causes of the Food Shortage
Agriculture in the North faces a number of problems. First of all, North Korea was heavily dependent on the former Soviet Union, China, and East European countries for economic and technological cooperation. After these countries adopted a market economy, North Korea was no longer able to enjoy socialist-style barter trade with its allies. Because of its lack of foreign exchange, North Korea had to curtail the import, not only of grain, but also of various raw materials it formerly procured through barter trade. Due to a lack of fuel, many factories had to reduce their operational hours. As a result, they have failed to meet the demand for fertilizer, agricultural chemicals and farm machinery.
Second, the cooperative farming system has some problems. North Korea has about 1.48 million ha of cropland out of a total area of 12 million ha. North Korea is reported to have developed good technology for breeding rice and corn, but productivity on cooperative farms has been declining. A North Korean farm family is usually given a small plot of land, about 100 m2, for private use. Productivity on private plots is 3-5 times higher than on cooperative farms. This is because farmers care more for them, and frequently use on their plots fertilizers and pesticides taken from cooperative farms.
Third, North Korean authorities ordered farmers to cut down perennial plants such as pine trees on mountain slopes, and plant corn in their place. This method was successful at first, but corn production required a great deal of fertilizer. The rugged terrain also meant that a large labor input was needed to harvest the corn and transport it to towns. The really damaging result was that as trees were cut, there were landslides which destroyed not only the upland terraces but covered fertile lowlands in sand and rock.
Forest clearance and the construction of terraces were the main cause of the floods in 1995 and 1996. About 70% of North Korea's arable land is in the southwestern coastal area, and has been damaged by flooding. Moreover, North Korea is poorly endowed with agricultural resources compared to e.g. South Korea. About 90% of its land is mountainous, and the average height of the country is 400 m above sea level. Due to low temperatures and a short growing period, crop yields have always been fairly low....
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