North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has urged government officials to ensure that grain production targets are “imperatively” met, state media said on Thursday, amid reports that food shortages are worsening in this region. isolated country.
Kim “ardently called for achieving this year’s grain production target without fail” at a key party meeting, the official KCNA news agency reported.
“In order to increase national agricultural production, efforts must be made to overcome the imbalances in the orientation of agriculture…and it is important to concentrate on increasing the yield per hectare in all exploitations”, adds the North Korean media.
Kim had already called on Monday for a “fundamental transformation” of the country’s agricultural production.
North Korea, nuclear-armed and subject to multiple sanctions because of its weapons programs, has long struggled to feed itself.
It has also been under a strict self-imposed blockade since early 2020 to curb the Covid-19 pandemic, and only resumed some trade with China last year.
According to South Korea’s Ministry for Unification, deaths from starvation have been reported in North Korea.
“We believe that the food shortages there are serious,” warned Koo Byoung-sam, spokesperson for the South Korean ministry, in late February, adding that Pyongyang seems to have requested aid from the World Food Program.
The impoverished North is widely criticized for prioritizing its military programs over ensuring an adequate food supply for its people.
In 2021, Kim had made rare references to these difficulties, declaring that the food situation in the North was becoming “tense” and warning people to prepare for the “worst case scenario”.
In the same year, public broadcaster KCTV admitted that the country was facing a “food crisis”.
Kim also emphasized food security and development in his speech outlining his program for 2022.
The country has been periodically hit by famines, one of which, in the 1990s, killed hundreds of thousands of people – some estimates even number in the millions.
It is highly vulnerable to natural disasters, including floods and drought, due to a chronic lack of infrastructure but also deforestation and decades of poor public management.
02/03/2023 04:31:00 – Seoul (AFP) © 2023 AFP
