"Food is communism!"During the difficult economic period of the DPRK, President Kim Il Sung said this phrase to encourage people to increase food production. Kim Chong-il also said: "Propagating the socialist system to the people with empty jobs cannot make them profoundly understand the true superiority of the socialist system, nor can they embrace the idea of socialist patriotism."
To this day, food remains a major problem for North Korea. The decline in agricultural productivity and the shortage of grain have had a serious negative impact on the normal development of the DPRK's economy, political stability, and the authority of the "Juche ideology."
The DPRK is a predominantly agricultural country, and agriculture is the foundation of the DPRK national economy. However, the mountainous and semi-mountainous areas of the DPRK account for 80 percent, and the cultivated land area is very small, mainly located in the area of North and South Pyongan Province and North and South Yellow Sea Province on the central and western coasts, accounting for only about 16% of the total land area, and the area used for pure grain cultivation in North Korea is only 1.6 million hectares. Moreover, these arable lands have poor soils, high soil erosion, and low food yields. Since the 90s, North Korea has been producing three to four million tons of grain, and there is still a gap of two million tons from self-sufficiency.
After independence, the DPRK attached great importance to the development of an independent national economy, and especially attached importance to relying on its own strength to solve the grain problem. In 1946, the DPRK implemented land reform and abolished private ownership of land. In 1958, the rural areas of Korea were transformed into agricultural cooperatives. Later, the investment in agricultural infrastructure was continuously increased, and the assistance of the socialist countries at that time promoted the development of water conservancy, electrification, and mechanization of agriculture in North Korea. By the end of the sixties, the Korean countryside was fully electrified. In the early eighties, most of the farm work was mechanized, agricultural productivity increased rapidly, and food self-sufficiency was achieved.
Since the mid-80s, due to the continuous emergence of the drawbacks of the traditional economic system, the "big pot rice" and "egalitarianism" have seriously dampened the peasants' enthusiasm for production. As the peasants worked negatively, the DPRK's agricultural productivity began to decline, and grain production gradually declined, so it had to rely on food aid and imports to make up for the shortage of domestic food. In the 90s, a series of serious natural disasters were encountered, which led to a large-scale reduction in the output of grain crops in North Korea. The sharp decline in grain production has caused the DPRK to face a severe food shortage.
In 1995, the DPRK adopted a variety of reform measures. From the "group management system" to the "group contract system" and then to the "family farming system", the scope of cooperative farms will be gradually narrowed to improve production efficiency. In terms of the production, purchase and marketing system, we have changed the long-standing management method of unified state purchasing and marketing, liberalized grain production, made it float with the market, and purchased and sold grain according to this principle, eliminating the disadvantages of deviating from production costs and the relationship between supply and demand. The DPRK** has also adopted a variety of supporting measures, such as military and local support for agriculture and the development of agricultural scientific and technological achievements, in order to promote the overall development of the agricultural economy.
As mentioned earlier, 1995 was a period of economic adjustment in the DPRK. The beginning of the March of Suffering means that the DPRK will have to go all out to carry out the economic recovery work of socialist construction in the face of difficulties. The food problem that needs to be solved most during this period is still the food problem. Ginger's scrap steel in exchange for a large amount of corn. The lack of food affects the country-building of the DPRK. During the period of economic adjustment in the DPRK, the main focus is on grain.
Labor requires physical strength, and it is indeed very difficult for hungry people to solve the problem of food. China has experienced natural disasters, as we have already demonstrated, and the elasticity of the waistband regulates the spirit, and does nothing to help hunger.
According to the Biography of Kim Jong Il, the "March of Suffering" refers to the march of the anti-Japanese guerrillas led by General Kim Il Sung for more than 100 days from December 1938 to early March 1939 in order to march to Korea and break through the encirclement of the Japanese army headquarters. The march was carried out in the bitter cold of -40 degrees Celsius and severe food difficulties, and in the adversity of a desperate battle against the Japanese invaders. North Korean textbooks refer to this period of history as a "painful march."
The Korean people should carry forward this spirit and turn around the difficult economic situation.
The ideal is beautiful, but the road is tortuous.
With the end of the trade with Jiang, Park brought a large amount of ore in exchange for our corn. This time, Park did not extend the trading time, and he seemed to be in a hurry. While foreign trade can provide some of the food, the more important form of self-reliance has been hit hard – flooding.
This is undoubtedly disastrous for North Korea. A good wish has just been established, and in the blink of an eye, it is despairing.
In North Korea, which has always been called a "police state," a "rogue state," a "pivot country," and a "state" by the West's "international," negative news such as the Great Famine, the withering of agriculture, the exodus of population, the recklessness of military force, the severe shortage of energy, and the verge of economic collapse have appeared in the newspapers on a large scale. Analysts' view of the cycle of the collapse of Kim Jong-il's regime has become the focus of keen attention.
The flood of the Yalu River in 1995 is still fresh in my memory, which was the largest flood peak of the Yalu River since the founding of the People's Republic of China, and it was also the first time in my life that I experienced and felt the power of nature. It is said that the Chinese side asked the Lagu outpost to release water in advance, but the North Korean side did not agree at first, until the dam could no longer bear it, and the Chinese side took a tough attitude, and the North Korean side agreed to the emergency flood discharge, causing a wider flood downstream.
The flood water connects the river to the ground, and the riverside, which used to be full of tourists, is already a vast ocean, and the water outside the dam is only two meters away from the height of the dam. The development zone where I live, one floor down, was flooded. North Korea on the other side of the Yalu River has no levees, and the trunks of the trees were flooded and then the tips of the trees were gone. Houses and public buildings in the upper-ni, lower-ni, and multi-ri areas of Sinuiju and the West-ri and U-gi-ri in Uiju-gun were all flooded, not to mention the fields, and the damage was very serious. Some people in Dandong have heard from nowhere that North Korea may blow up the dam, and people are panicking, preparing food and clothing, and even planning to leave their homes.
In 1995, in addition to the Yalu River, China's Yangtze River, Liao River, and Songhua River also experienced major floods. The Yangtze River has caused damage to the farmlands of Sichuan, Hunan, Hubei, and Jiangxi provinces, and the Liaohe, Songhua, and Yalu rivers have affected a large area of farmland in Liaoning, Kyrgyzstan, and Hei provinces, and the number of people affected has reached tens of millions.
China has a vast territory, and when one side is in trouble, all sides will support, and there is no problem of hunger. North Korea's land area is one-eightieth that of China, and the floods are nationwide and have a devastating impact.
According to the book "Korea in the Era of Kim Jong Il" written by Japanese journalist Ryuji Nada, the floods in North Korea in 1995 affected 145 counties in 8 provinces, 75% of the country's land area, with a total amount of 15 billion US dollars, 5.2 million people affected, 360,000 hectares of cultivated land, and 2 forests10,000 hectares of damaged dwellings480,000 buildings, grain production decreased by 1.91 million tons, and 480,000 livestock were lost.
According to the data provided by Ryuji Nada on the reduction of 1.91 million tons of grain production in 1995, the actual grain output in 1995 was only 2.35 million tonsThe annual per capita grain output was 1136 kilograms is equivalent to only about 300 grams of grain per person per day, and with grain reserves and imports, it is no more than 400 grams at most. In this way, there is still a considerable gap.
During this period, international assistance was provided to the DPRK. According to relevant information, China has provided emergency relief materials, food, and fertilizer to the DPRK free of charge. The United States, South Korea, Japan, the European Union and other international organizations have also provided food and other humanitarian donations through international organizations such as the World Food Programme. A number of international agencies, non-governmental organizations and groups, such as the United Nations Development Programme and the International Committee of the Red Cross, have also provided support. Nigeria, Pakistan, Cuba, Libya and other countries also provided financial assistance.
Since the collectivization of the countryside, the DPRK has implemented a system of food rationing for all residents, except agricultural workers, who generally buy food every 15 days at designated grain stores. At that time, the standard of grain in North Korea was: 750 grams per person per day for heavy manual laborers;Generally**500 grams per day;400 grams for college students;300 grams for elementary school students. During natural disasters, that number is halved or even less. According to Park, during that period, one-third of North Korea's grain was distributed by the state, one-third was solved by units, and the other one-third was left to individuals to figure out how to do it. In this way, due to the differences in the abilities of enterprises and individuals in each unit, people will not get the same food.
After the flood, I was able to enter Sinuiju freely due to the normal progress of **. During this period, in addition to international aid, there was a steady stream of grain delivered to the DPRK by large and small companies, and the busyness of the DPRK customs even appeared for a short period of exemption from inspection.