Kim Jong Un called for “radical improvements” in the agricultural sector to stabilize food production. North Korea has been struggling with water shortages for a long time.
As the state news agency KCNA reported on Wednesday, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un visited an agricultural machinery exhibition on Tuesday. According to the agency, several hundred different types of machines were presented there, and Kim “learned in detail about their performance and technical specifications.”
During the visit, he also called for “radical improvement” in the agricultural machinery sector. He considered it an “urgent need” and “an important guarantee” in “implementing the program of revolution in the countryside.” He admitted that it is important to develop a long-term development plan for rural areas, including agricultural mechanization.
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Food shortages in North Korea
Reuters reminds that in recent decades, North Koreans have experienced chronic food shortages, such as the voting disaster of the 1990s. According to various estimates, hundreds of thousands of people died then. Many experts estimate that the situation in North Korea has worsened during the Covid-19 pandemic. Koreans who managed to talk to the media they report that people are still dying of hunger there.
Faced with food shortages, Pyongyang announces plans to modernize the agricultural sector. In his speech last week, the North Korean dictator said, among other things: on economic goals for 2024, called for “stabilizing agricultural production at a high level.”
Main photo source: Oleg Znamenskiy / Shutterstock