North Korea Ryongyon program 2600-8008
Report: June 1, 2009
Excerpts from a report on visits made by Pilju Kim Joo, Ph.D.
In 2009 I made three trips to North Korea and I also spent some time in China and South Korea with four North Korean delegates to learn about a cotton processing plant.
All four farms are planning to transplant cotton from the second week of May to May 20th followed by rice right after. About 20 to 30 hectares of potatoes were inter-planted with cotton in each farm and about the same amount of winter wheat and spring barley were planted as double cropping to overcome food shortages.
Thanks to Foods Resource Bank, Global Food Crisis and Lutheran Churches Missouri Synod we were able to supply 120mt of combined fertilizer, 1.5mt of insecticide, 2.5mt of corn seed thus far. We also supplied some fruit trees but I still need to find out the cost.
Recently I received a request from the farms for high protein and high yielding soybean seed to plant this year for soymilk to feed children. Our farms originally planned to use local seed; it is a bit late to supply now but soybean can be planted into June and I am searching for seed at this moment.
It has been an extremely challenging period to support North Korean agriculture this spring due to the political situation. The US and South Korean governments have been very critical about North Korean Missile test which North Koreans claim is a satellite and dispute the nuclear armament situation.
Inside of North Korea I do not see any escalation of military activities or tension. I hope that the situation improves between DPRK and US along with South Korea soon to help those poor people squeezed in between. Thanks again for your support.