[Column] Sanctions on North Korea haven’t led to serious food shortages as many predicted : Editorial & Opinion : News : The Hankyoreh
[Column] Sanctions on North Korea haven’t led to serious food shortages as many predicted
Posted on : Jan.7,2019 17:49 KST Modified on : Jan.7,2019 17:49 KST
Kim Jong-un’s New Year’s address reveals key ongoing structural changes
North Koreans plant rice in South Pyongan Province. (Yonhap News)http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/english_editorials/877346.html?fbclid=IwAR2k0XEEsx4t9tkjmvQeGL-beIJMNUSrsWjtX1vZyqGgyHe4E7hEkDNdzSYhttp://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/english_editorials/877346.html?fbclid=IwAR2k0XEEsx4t9tkjmvQeGL-beIJMNUSrsWjtX1vZyqGgyHe4E7hEkDNdzSY
While most of the attention surrounding North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s 2019 New Year’s address focused on the parts about denuclearization and North Korea-US relations, what really caught my attention was his use of the term “high-yielding units and farmers” in assessing performance in the agricultural sector. North Korea’s existing approach of socialist agriculture under collective ownership – as exemplified by the “collective farm” – does not admit the existence of individuals (or individual farms) as units of production and distribution. Such a thing would violate the idea of collectivism. There are only farms, work groups, and lower-level groups.
Yet here was a reference to “high-yielding farmers” in a New Year’s address by North Korea’s top leader. What does that entail? It means that structural reforms are under way in North Korea where individual farmers are becoming the basic units in production and distribution – and that this is being granted the official seal of approval.
As I have observed North Korea in recent years, the food situation has been the area I’ve had the most questions and skepticism about. Just 20 years ago, North Korea was facing starvation deaths in the hundreds of thousands at least; throughout the country, people were roaming around in search of food. Nothing special happened in the 2000s to herald a turnaround in the food situation, either. The North was only able to escape more deaths from starvation thanks to yearly infusions of overseas aid and large-scale food imports.
Accordingly, many predicted that the intensive sanctions imposed on the North over the past few years would lead to a serious food shortage. That isn’t what happened, though. It has also been some time since international food aid to North Korea was suspended. The North has not received any large-scale corn or wheat imports from China or Russia over the past four to five years. The garden patches that residents previously farmed illegally for food have dwindled amid reforestation measures and neglect.
What happened? Food production is on the rise. Many experts have attributed North Korea’s chronic food shortage to the methods of collectivist agriculture. By their assessment, such an approach is unsuitable to fostering a production climate of competition and drive among farmers; increasing food production will require structural reforms to adopt a format along Chinese lines, where individual farmers sign subcontracts with individual farms. But the prevailing view is that North Korea would not implement such reforms, which stand to promote the spread of individualism and a market economy.
And yet North Korea has actually been introducing agricultural reforms, instituting the so-called farmland responsibility system (FRS) with the aim of increasing production. A “vegetable garden” in North Korea refers to a “field in which grains and other crops are planted and cultivated.”
Establishment of individual farming units
The North has learned from experience that a production and distribution system based on large units diminishes farmers’ drive to produce, and it has introduced a “small-scale group management system” assigning minor collective farm production and distribution units into groups of 15 to 20 people. That approach too has done little to increase food production.
With the arrival of the Kim Jong-un era, a number of different experiments with reforms were carried out, and the end result was the establishment of the FRS, in which individuals are entrusted with farming specific areas of land and carrying out related distribution. What this system means is that North Korean agriculture has been fundamentally reformed as the units of production and distribution have been passed down to the level of individual farmers. In effect, individuals rather than collectives have been established as the basic units in production competition.
The Rodong Sinmun newspaper first made reference to the FRS in 2018, stating that the scale of vegetable gardens assigned to individual farmers would be based on ability and that the resulting distribution would also be assigned differentially. It has also stressed the position that collectivism in distribution is the chief factor responsible for diminishing farmers’ drive to produce, warning strongly against it as a violation of North Korea’s socialist principles of distribution.
According to this view, income differences would inevitably arise even among farmers within the same small-scale groups depending on their production yields and achievement of goals.
With its recent fundamental reforms under this agricultural management approach, North Korea set in motion a historic shift in food production. To be sure, the food situation in the North remains poor enough for the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to conclude that another 640,000 tons or so was needed last year. Nevertheless, the improvements from the past have been steady and marked.
The driving force behind Kim’s commitment to agricultural reforms is his desire for economic development. In his New Year’s address, he openly called for “sideline stockbreeding” – something Pyongyang has been reluctant to allow in the past – as a way of “supply[ing] the people with more meat and eggs.” Underlying this is an understanding that both collectives and individuals require any increase in production they can get.
===============
Lee Jong-seok, former Unification MinisterIn the final analysis, North Korea has sought to overcome the limits of a society of “the one in service of the whole” for the sake of economic development, embarking on reforms where the whole assesses the capabilities of individuals and grants them institutional guarantees. It’s a change that is poised to have a major impact on the future of inter-Korean cooperation and the Korean Peninsula. Now is a time when this matter demands as sophisticated an analysis and response as the denuclearization issue.
By Lee Jong-seok, former Unification Minister and senior research fellow at the Sejong Institute
Yet here was a reference to “high-yielding farmers” in a New Year’s address by North Korea’s top leader. What does that entail? It means that structural reforms are under way in North Korea where individual farmers are becoming the basic units in production and distribution – and that this is being granted the official seal of approval.
As I have observed North Korea in recent years, the food situation has been the area I’ve had the most questions and skepticism about. Just 20 years ago, North Korea was facing starvation deaths in the hundreds of thousands at least; throughout the country, people were roaming around in search of food. Nothing special happened in the 2000s to herald a turnaround in the food situation, either. The North was only able to escape more deaths from starvation thanks to yearly infusions of overseas aid and large-scale food imports.
Accordingly, many predicted that the intensive sanctions imposed on the North over the past few years would lead to a serious food shortage. That isn’t what happened, though. It has also been some time since international food aid to North Korea was suspended. The North has not received any large-scale corn or wheat imports from China or Russia over the past four to five years. The garden patches that residents previously farmed illegally for food have dwindled amid reforestation measures and neglect.
What happened? Food production is on the rise. Many experts have attributed North Korea’s chronic food shortage to the methods of collectivist agriculture. By their assessment, such an approach is unsuitable to fostering a production climate of competition and drive among farmers; increasing food production will require structural reforms to adopt a format along Chinese lines, where individual farmers sign subcontracts with individual farms. But the prevailing view is that North Korea would not implement such reforms, which stand to promote the spread of individualism and a market economy.
And yet North Korea has actually been introducing agricultural reforms, instituting the so-called farmland responsibility system (FRS) with the aim of increasing production. A “vegetable garden” in North Korea refers to a “field in which grains and other crops are planted and cultivated.”
Establishment of individual farming units
The North has learned from experience that a production and distribution system based on large units diminishes farmers’ drive to produce, and it has introduced a “small-scale group management system” assigning minor collective farm production and distribution units into groups of 15 to 20 people. That approach too has done little to increase food production.
With the arrival of the Kim Jong-un era, a number of different experiments with reforms were carried out, and the end result was the establishment of the FRS, in which individuals are entrusted with farming specific areas of land and carrying out related distribution. What this system means is that North Korean agriculture has been fundamentally reformed as the units of production and distribution have been passed down to the level of individual farmers. In effect, individuals rather than collectives have been established as the basic units in production competition.
The Rodong Sinmun newspaper first made reference to the FRS in 2018, stating that the scale of vegetable gardens assigned to individual farmers would be based on ability and that the resulting distribution would also be assigned differentially. It has also stressed the position that collectivism in distribution is the chief factor responsible for diminishing farmers’ drive to produce, warning strongly against it as a violation of North Korea’s socialist principles of distribution.
According to this view, income differences would inevitably arise even among farmers within the same small-scale groups depending on their production yields and achievement of goals.
With its recent fundamental reforms under this agricultural management approach, North Korea set in motion a historic shift in food production. To be sure, the food situation in the North remains poor enough for the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to conclude that another 640,000 tons or so was needed last year. Nevertheless, the improvements from the past have been steady and marked.
The driving force behind Kim’s commitment to agricultural reforms is his desire for economic development. In his New Year’s address, he openly called for “sideline stockbreeding” – something Pyongyang has been reluctant to allow in the past – as a way of “supply[ing] the people with more meat and eggs.” Underlying this is an understanding that both collectives and individuals require any increase in production they can get.
===============
Lee Jong-seok, former Unification MinisterIn the final analysis, North Korea has sought to overcome the limits of a society of “the one in service of the whole” for the sake of economic development, embarking on reforms where the whole assesses the capabilities of individuals and grants them institutional guarantees. It’s a change that is poised to have a major impact on the future of inter-Korean cooperation and the Korean Peninsula. Now is a time when this matter demands as sophisticated an analysis and response as the denuclearization issue.
By Lee Jong-seok, former Unification Minister and senior research fellow at the Sejong Institute
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