North Korean farmers voice frustration over politicized farming meetings

The South Korean portal Daily NK reports that North Korean farmers are displeased with the format of these government meetings centering on the Juche farming method. An anonymous source from North Korea revealed to the portal, "These sessions are more focused on fostering loyalty towards the Workers' Party and the Supreme Leader than on imparting farmers with practical skills and farming knowledge."

The primary emphasis of the government-sponsored instructors during these trainings is on patriotism and loyalty. These sessions, dedicated to the Juche farming method, are organized at the beginning of every new year. This training was first introduced following the Workers' Party's criticism of traditional farming techniques and their blunt description of them as "clumsy". Although these sessions have been in existence for over fifty years, farmers maintain they have yielded no positive results.

These training programs offer little variance to cater to the individual characteristics of different regions and their respective farmers' needs. According to Daily NK, Koreans harbor disdain for these meetings as they have morphed into another instrument to disseminate party ideology.

As the South Korean portal points out, the root of the food crisis in North Korea is not due to a lack of farmers' loyalty. Although the food self-sufficiency rate in the country exceeds 78 percent, productivity is in steady decline. The factors contributing to this predicament include irrational resource allocation, rigid farm management, an unfitting distribution policy, and devastated agricultural infrastructure, Daily NK notes.

Source: Daily NK