The North Hwanghae Province Agricultural Guidance Bureau recently sent a directive to farms urging them to spray pesticides on wheat and barley planted last fall, Daily NK has learned.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a source in North Hwanghae Province said last Wednesday that the provincial agricultural community finance committee sent the directive to all local farms last month, instructing them “not to miss the important time,” referring to the approaching period for spraying pesticides to crops planted last fall.
According to the source, the directive reiterated the importance of farming with the coming spring, when wheat and barley mature, and urged farmers to use pesticides at the appropriate time. It also urged them to hold “technical workshops” on pesticide use.
The order told farms to hold two-hour workshops every day, because while spraying pesticides is something farms do every year, full-scale cultivation of wheat and barley began only two years ago and is somewhat different from rice farming, the source said.
In a policy speech to the Supreme People’s Assembly in September 2021, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un called for doubling the area under wheat and barley nationwide and increasing the area under rice to enable “civilized improvement” of the food situation by increasing harvests and providing white rice and wheat flour to the people.
Although farmers responded by increasing wheat and barley acreage, production of these crops did not increase significantly in 2022 or 2023.
Accordingly, the provincial agricultural community finance committee seems to be paying attention to this spring’s grain farming, issuing a special order to boost wheat and barley production.
Farms ordered to minimize crop damage as much as possible
In the decree, the committee emphasized that the primary duty of farmers is to ensure optimal conditions for grain growth in the spring and to increase yields on the fields they are responsible for.
To that end, the committee specifically called on farms to regularly test soil quality and add nutrients as needed, as well as to minimize crop damage from climate change.
“The order asked farmers to make sure that public broadcasters or loudspeakers in their fields are functioning normally and to transmit weather information to farms at least twice a day,” the source said.
In addition, the provincial farm finance committee also said that “mixing the collective management system with the individual contract system” is at the heart of agriculture. In essence, it called for the proper use of the individual contract system, which emphasizes the individual role and responsibility of farmers, to substantially increase productivity while emphasizing the fundamental collective nature of agriculture.
“In the directive, the provincial agricultural community finance committee said North Hwanghae Province aims to improve agricultural production by 1.3 times over last year by increasing the efficiency of group management through the widespread use of modern agricultural techniques and information,” the source said.
Translated by David Black. Edited by Robert Lauler.
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April 08, 2024 at 01:00PM
by DailyNK(North Korean Media)