(20 May 2019) In the rice fields of North Korea, farmers are once again facing a struggle to make the most of this year's harvest, as the country remains hungry.
Mid-May is the crucial rice-transplanting season, when seedlings are moved from their beds where they have been carefully cultivated, into open fields.
In North Korea, the process is mostly manual labour, with mainly women in the fields, bent double, wrapped up against the sun, up to their calves in mud and water, deftly plucking rice seedlings from clumps in one hand and using the other hand to pop them into exactly the right place.
The aim is to make the most of the space, water and conditions available, to grow as much rice as possible.
The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) and Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) have warned of increased hunger this year in North Korea in the aftermath of last year's worst harvest in ten years, and bad weather conditions.
The UN food security assseement found that about 10.1 million people suffer from severe food shortages, meaning they do not have enough food until the next harvest.
The aggregate 2018/19 food crop production is estimated at 4.9 million metric tons, which is the lowest since the 2008/09 season.
The assessment, which is based on FAO and WFP missions to the country last month (April 2018) and in November 2018, concluded that the reduced harvest, coupled with increased post-harvest losses, has led to an uncovered food deficit of 1.36 million metric tons after considering the commercial import capacity of the country.
The report found worryingly low food consumption levels, limited dietary diversity and families being forced to cut meals or eat less.
In particular, it expresses serious concern about lack of dietary diversity which is vital to good nutrition. The situation is particularly worrisome for young children and pregnant and breastfeeding women, who are the most vulnerable to malnutrition.
At Sambong, a big cooperative farm just outside the capital Pyongyang, the Vice Chairman of the farm Kim Chang Jun acknowledged the concerns, but said that his farmers have prepared to save water in expectation of the lack of rain this year.
Kim said that last year (2018), his farm managed to produce 8.5 tons of rice per chongbo – a Korean traditional measure of area approximately equivalent to 1 hectare.
This year, they are hoping to produce 10 tons per chongbo, he said.
North Korean state media have issued warnings and are currently campaigning to urge farmers to do their best with what they have, to grow as much as possible this year.
The state-run main newspaper Worker's Daily on Saturday wrote "It is imperative to concentrate all efforts and means on urgent rice transplanting in order to attain this year's goal of grain production set by the Party… The hostile forces who don't want us to become prosperous and well-off are seeking to make our people undergo shortage of food, bring to collapse their faith in socialism and thus subdue us. We should do rice transplanting in a proper way at the right time, make a breakthrough for increased grain production and thus deal a telling blow to the hostile forces."
The Sambong cooperative is a model farm by North Korean standards, with better conditions than face many people around the country.
It practices the latest North Korean methods in farming management, which try to stimulate farmers to work by allowing them to keep what they can grow after satisfying state requirements. These methods were trialled from 2012 and then adopted nationwide in 2016.

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