The North Korean leader emphasizes the need to build “wealthy and highly cultured” communities amid reported food shortages.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has urged officials to meet agricultural production targets amid reported food shortages, stating that “nothing is impossible” under the leadership of the ruling Workers’ Party.
Kim said at a ruling party meeting on Wednesday that officials should focus on meeting grain production targets “without fail”, increasing yields on all farms and eliminating “internal factors that adversely affect the development of the agriculture,” said the state-run Korean government. This is reported by the Central Press Agency (KCNA).
Kim, the third generation of his family to govern secretive North Korea, also called on officials to “substantially strengthen the political, ideological, material and technical foundations of the countryside,” according to the KCNA.
“His closing speech, based on profound originality and scientific rigor, is a weapon of change that provided a springboard for a epoch-making leap in continuing the gigantic process of implementing the Rural Revolution Program into the New Era…”, said the KCNA.
Kim, who is treated with divine reverence in the official media, earlier this week called for a “radical change” in agricultural production to “lay the foundations for stable and sustainable agricultural development”.
Kim’s comments stem from concerns that the food situation is deteriorating in North Korea, one of the poorest and most isolated countries in the world.
Last week, South Korea’s Unification Ministry said its northern neighbor appeared to be facing a “serious” food situation and there were reports of starvation deaths.
Washington-based think tank 38 North said in a report last month that the country teetered on the brink of famine after the 2020-21 harvest “likely failed to meet minimum human needs.”
North Korea has long struggled with food insecurity, with a devastating famine in the 1990s estimated to have killed between 240,000 and 3.5 million people.
Analysts have blamed recent extreme weather events and border closures during the COVID-19 pandemic for the latest deterioration in the food situation, following decades of economic stagnation due to centralized planning, the misuse of arms development resources and international sanctions.
North Korea’s economy contracted by an estimated 0.1 percent in 2021, its second consecutive year of contraction, according to South Korea’s central bank.
At the ruling party meeting, Kim laid out plans to create “wealthy and highly cultured rural socialist communities with advanced technology and modern civilization,” which would be “turned into reality in the near future.”
Despite the reported difficulties, North Korea has rejected suggestions to accept outside aid, with the official newspaper Rodong Sinmun last week calling for greater economic self-reliance and comparing foreign aid to “poisoned candy”.
