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North Korea’s Kim Yong Sool Confirms “Private Farming System” for the First Time

North Korea’s Kim Yong Sool Confirms “Private Farming System” for the First Time

Posted December. 12, 2004 22:51,   

한국어

Chosun Shinbo, the bulletin of the Pro-Pyeongyang General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, reported by quoting North Korea’s vice trade minister Kim Yong Sool on December 11 that North Korea has introduced the “Fields Undertaking System,” a type of private farming system in collective farms.

This is noticeable due to the fact that a North Korean high-ranking official has, for the first time, confirmed that North Korea is applying this system on a national scale.

Vice-minister Kim said, “The collective farms are currently testing the fields undertaking system,” and continued, “The right to divide groups (a work unit of a joint farm consisting of around seven or eight members each) into smaller units has been given to the collective farms, and the fields undertaking system, in which fields can be handled in smaller units, came up in the process.”

Vice-minister Kim said, “If more crops can be produced from the land with the same amount of work, then this correctly applies to utilitarianism,” and continued, “We are experimenting in many ways on how to increase production, with a utilitarian point of view.”

Vice-minister Kim did not reveal whether the operation range of this system applies to the whole nation or is restricted to certain regions.

However, he said, “We are testing this system in the collective farms,” implying the fact that the collective farms throughout the nation are trying this out.



Suk-Ho Shin kyle@donga.com