$Unique_ID{COW02665} $Pretitle{281} $Title{North Korea Chapter 3C. Agriculture, Forestry, and Fishery} $Subtitle{} $Author{Stephan B. Wickman} $Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army} $Subject{production management government agricultural percent cooperative farms land work chongbo} $Date{1981} $Log{} Country: North Korea Book: North Korea, A Country Study Author: Stephan B. Wickman Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army Date: 1981 Chapter 3C. Agriculture, Forestry, and Fishery Despite agriculture's decreasing share of total economic output and national income, it remained essential to the well-being of the economy for several reasons. Well over 40 percent of the working population was still engaged in agricultural work in the late 1970s, and the food processing, construction, and other service industries still depended on agricultural materials to supply their own production needs. Since self-reliance remained an important pillar in Kim's ideology, self-sufficiency in food production was one of the worthiest goals of the economy. Another aim of party policies-to reduce the "gap" in living standards between the countryside and the city-required continued investment in the agricultural sector. Finally, as in most countries, changes in the supply or prices of foodstuffs were probably the most conspicuous and sensitive economic concerns for the average citizen. The stability of the country depended on steady, if not rapid, increases in the availability of food items at reasonable prices. Kim's most far-reaching statement on agricultural policy has been his 1964 address, "Theses on the Socialist Agrarian Question in Our Country" (or simply, the "Rural Theses"), which underscored the government's concern for agricultural development. Kim's emphasis on technological and educational progress in the countryside as well as collective forms of ownership and management telescoped most of the government's efforts to encourage agriculture in the 1960s and 1970s. The "Rural Theses" justified the energy and capital spent on improving the technical inputs to agricultural production. There were, of course, important organizational and managerial reforms before and after Kim's "Rural Theses" address, and the government continued to hold out the goal of transferring all assets in the countryside to "all-people ownership." But efforts to turn cooperative farms into state-run enterprises were almost nonexistent. The overwhelming thrust of government policy was for technological change. The task of increasing production in the countryside beyond the simple recovery from the Korean War was not easy, not the least because the country's sparse agricultural resources put tight limits on the growth of production. Neither the climate, terrain, nor the soil conditions were particularly favorable to farming. Only 18 percent of the total landmass, or 2.2 million hectares, was arable, the major portion of the country being rugged mountain terrain. The weather varied markedly according to elevation, and lack of precipitation along with infertile soil made land at elevations higher than 400 meters unsuitable for purposes other than grazing. Precipitation was geographically and seasonally irregular, and in most parts of the country, as much as half the annual rainfall occurred in the three summer months (see Physical Environment, ch. 2). This pattern favored the cultivation of paddy rice in warmer regions that were outfitted with irrigation and flood control networks. Where these conditions were lacking, however, North Korean farmers had to substitute other grains for the traditional favorite. As a result, farming was concentrated in the flatlands of the four west coast provinces, where a longer growing season, level land, adequate rainfall, and good, irrigated soil permitted the most intensive cultivation of crops. A narrow strip of similarly fertile land ran through the eastern seaboard provinces of North and South Hamgyong and Kangwon, but the interior provinces of Chagang and Yanggang were too mountainous, cold, and dry to allow much farming. The mountains, however, contained the bulk of North Korea's forest reserves, while the foothills within and between the major agricultural regions provided lands for livestock grazing and fruit tree cultivation. Resource Development Recognizing that topography, climate, and soil conspired to block the achievement of self-sufficiency in agriculture, North Korea invested in several types of resource development programs. The major methods for what Kim Il Sung called "nature remodelling" were irrigation, flood control, fertilizer use, mechanization, electrification, and land reclamation. Uneven patterns of investment in agriculture hindered the progress of some of these national development efforts, but the country has improved many of its agricultural resources. Although the thrust of the early development plans was to expand heavy industry first, rural irrigation and electrification projects also received substantial state investment. By 1961 the government claimed to have irrigated 800,000 chongbo of cultivated land, including all paddy rice fields. Foreign observers discounted these claims, however, and one estimate suggested that only 700,000 hectares were irrigated by 1973. With the continued investment in irrigation projects during the Six-Year Plan, outside estimates rose to 1 million hectares of irrigated land by 1978. In that year the government reported that the country had 1,500 reservoirs. Official statistics describing the progress of electrification have been less controversial. The proportion of villages supplied with electricity increased from 47 percent in 1953 to 92 percent of all villages by the end of 1961, and the whole process of extending electrical lines to the rural areas was reportedly completed in 1970. Whether or not all farm households were connected directly to power lines remained questionable, but there was little doubt that consumption rose considerably. In 1976 Kim Il Sung boasted that the rural areas utilized 1.6 million kilowatt-hours of electrical power, 83 percent more than in 1970. Complete statistics on the level of mechanization were not available in 1981, but the experience of tractor utilization implied that progress was not as swift as had been planned. The goal of the First Seven-Year Plan, 70,000-80,000 tractors (counted in fifteen-horsepower units), was not officially met until 1974, some three years behind an already delayed schedule. In 1980 the average number of tractors per 100 chongbo of cultivated land was seven on the plains and six in the intermediate and hilly areas. Both these averages were lower than the goal of ten to twelve tractors per 100 chongbo, which Kim had foreseen by the beginning of the 1980s. Because of the slow growth of tractor production, the target for the Second Seven-Year Plan was still only ten tractors per 100 chongbo. Nonetheless, the government was proud to announce that Farm-Machine Stations all over the countryside provided "hundreds of, thousands of" tractors, trucks, and trailing farm machinery. The process of "chemicalization," North Korean terminology for the increased utilization of chemical fertilizers, also faced difficulties. The goal of the "Rural Theses"-to apply one-half ton of fertilizer to each chongbo of cultivated land-was officially reached before 1970. The 1.5 million tons of chemical fertilizers produced that year, however, was less than the target of 1.7 million tons. The government claimed that the average rate of chemical fertilizer use was over one ton by the end of the Six-Year Plan and was 1.5 tons by 1979. In addition, chemical herbicides were in use in more than 97 percent of cultivated fields. Since official statistics were probably calculated on the basis of gross weight rather than nutrient content, comparisons with other countries were impossible. The government planned to increase the amount of fertilizer used to over two tons per chongbo by 1984. Insufficient data similarly precluded an objective assessment of the land development effort, including terracing and the reclamation of tidelands and marshes. The First Seven-Year Plan targeted 400,000 chongbo for reclamation, but the actual achievement was probably less than one-tenth of this. There was no report on the success of the Six-Year Plan in this regard. In the late 1970s Kim devoted several important speeches to the topic of land reclamation, stating that 200,000 chongbo of farmland was perfect for terracing and that numerous savings could be achieved by rezoning rice fields, improving soil conditions, preventing erosion, and reclaiming tideland. Because the latter involved the greatest engineering effort, other types of work were to receive first priority. Nonetheless, the target for the Second Seven-Year Plan was to dike some 100,000 chongbo of tideland (much of this work begun in the Six-Year Plan) and to terrace 150,000 chongbo of upland fields. The ultimate party goal was to reclaim 300,000 chongbo of land by the end of the 1980s. Distribution and Production of Crops and Livestock Over 95 percent of the 2.2 million hectares of cropland was planted with grains, of which rice accounted for more than one-third. The major rice production centers were located in the northern and southern provinces of both Hwanghae and P'yongan on the west coast. The rice harvest reached an estimated 4.8 million tons in 1979, more than half the total grain harvest of 9 million tons officially announced for 1979 and 1980. By contrast, the estimated average level of production in 1969-71 was 2.4 million tons, or 47 percent of all grains. Because of discrepancies between North Korean and outside methods of calculating the weight of rice and other grains, it was likely that the figures were exaggerated. Likewise, official data on cropland distribution and per hectare yields were both scant and questionable. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) conjectured that the average yield of rice was over six tons per hectare in 1979 and that production had increased an average of 7 percent each year during the 1970s. North Korean sources claimed that an average yield of 5.9 tons per hectare was reached as early as 1974 and that some fields grew more than ten tons per hectare in 1979 (see tables 7, 8, Appendix). If the FAO estimates reflected the trend of production correctly, then much of the increase in rice output was attributable to the expansion of the area under cultivation. During the 1970s the share of rice paddies in the total area planted with cereal crops rose from 27 to 36 percent. North Korea's climate precluded double-cropping of rice in most areas, and different methods were required to increase productivity. One method was the use of cold-bed seeding, a process enabling farmers to begin rice growing before the regular season by planting seedlings in protected, dry beds. Government researchers were introducing high-yield strains of rice on an experimental basis but, by one account, were experiencing difficulty finding the appropriate variety for local conditions. Maize, barley, wheat, millet, sorghum, and oats were the other major cereals produced. Maize grew in most areas, except for parts of Yanggang and North Hamgyong provinces, while barley and wheat were cultivated mostly in the provinces of South Hwanghae, North Hwanghae, and South P'yongan. Of these cereals, maize had the highest per hectare yield. The average growth of the production of these cereals was less than a third of the increase in rice production. The wheat harvest expanded at a higher annual rate than the other grains but failed to keep pace with demand, thus requiring imports of wheat and wheat flour. The production of vegetables, fruit, and other cash crops, such as tobacco, continued to expand during the 1970s. Potatoes, vegetables, melons, and other fruit showed the greatest growth and the highest per hectare yields. Although there were invariably differences from region to region, Kim announced that vegetable yields exceeded 250 tons per chongbo in the area around P'yongyang and neared 200 tons per chongbo in many other areas in 1978. About 20 percent of all fruit orchards were located in South Hamgyong, South P'yongan, South Hwanghae, and North Hamgyong provinces. Soybeans were raised in many parts of the country, but primarily in South P'yongan Province. Soybean production, however, failed to keep pace with demand. The share of livestock in the total value of agricultural output increased during the 1960s and probably during the 1970s. According to FAO estimates, both livestock and total meat production rose steadily, the latter by about 4 percent per year, keeping ahead of population growth. Cattle were raised in the mountainous parts of the two P'yongan provinces while sheep and goats were kept in the rugged areas of the two Hamgyong provinces and in Yanggang and Kangwon provinces. Pigs and poultry, probably the most important types of livestock, were raised near P'yongyang and in North P'yongan and South Hwanghae provinces. The government was particularly proud of its giant chicken farms. The Second Seven-Year Plan target was 800,000-900,000 tons of meat production each year by 1984. Organization and Management While the government has focused public investment in agriculture on the expansion of cropland and improving the supply of technical inputs, such as machinery and fertilizer, it has also experimented with a variety of organizational and managerial techniques both to stimulate production and to further socialism and national cohesion. In the 1950s these efforts included a sweeping land reform followed by the collectivization of agriculture into a system of "cooperative farms." During the 1960s the regime developed a managerial system which relied on increased material incentives but also bolstered government supervision of local production. At the same time the government continued its use of "battles" and mass campaigns to spur initiative. The agricultural system stabilized during the 1970s, and the apparent ascendancy of Kim Jong Il seemed unlikely to change the basic style of organization and management. The Cooperative System The organization of agriculture followed Kim's interpretation of Marxist-Leninist theory and practice. Land ownership passed through the first two of three phases aimed at transforming the peasantry into a "rural proletariat." These stages were first a system of private landholdings, followed by cooperative ownership, and finally, full-scale communal or "all-people's" ownership. As of mid-1981 the third stage had been achieved only in the relatively few "state farms"; the vast majority of agricultural production took place in rural cooperatives. In the remarkably short period of one month, the Land Reform Act of March 1946 had accomplished the abolishment of tenancy and the confiscation and redistribution of over 1 million chongbo of land. The government reallocated most of the land formerly owned by the Japanese colonialists and all properties exceeding five chongbo to individual farming households. The number of peasant holdings increased dramatically, while the average size of individual holdings dropped from 2.4 to 1.4 chongbo. It was difficult to determine the effect of such a massive land reform on production, since the Korean War interrupted farming in the early 1950s. But the reform was quickly to be replaced by a drive for collectivization. The transition from a system of private ownership to collective agriculture took place during the 1954-58 period. Most holdings went through three forms of progressively truer collective types: "permanent mutual-aid teams," "semi-socialist cooperatives," and then the "complete socialist cooperatives." In the final stage, all land and implements were owned collectively by the members of the cooperative (see Rural Social Organization, ch. 2). The pace of collectivization quickened during 1956, and by the end of that year 80 percent of all farmland was cooperatively owned. By the time this process was completed in August 1958, more than 13,300 cooperatives with an average of eighty households and 130 hectares of land dotted the countryside. Only two months later, however, the government increased the size of the average cooperative-to 300 households managing 50 hectares of land-by making it coterminous with the village, or ri (see Glossary). Each cooperative farm elected a management committee to oversee all aspects of farm activities, including retail services and marketing, and the local party committee closely supervised its management. The party committee chairman was usually the vice-chairman of the management committee. Within the management committee, an auditing unit wielded the most power and controlled the management of farm accounts, work points, cooperative shops, and credit facilities. The auditors reported to the plenary session of the management committee as well as to county authorities. Management committees had operational staffs in charge of specified aspects of production and technological guidance (see fig. 21). Agricultural specialists were usually the graduates of training programs or technical schools and held government certificates attesting to their competence. Other managers were assigned to run the various support facilities, including the credit office, school, dispensary, retail shops, or other service centers. The basic unit of production and accounting on the cooperative farm was the work team, which was further subdivided into subteams (see Glossary). Most cooperatives had several agricultural work teams and at least one animal husbandry work team. In some cooperatives, work teams or subteams specialized in vegetable farming, sericulture, fruit cultivation, aquiculture, or other activities. In addition, "work groups" were organized for seasonal tasks, such as rope-making, or the construction of shelters for crops, and especially for the rice harvest, when every available hand was required to bring in the crop as quickly as possible. Groups of party cadres and office workers would assist the farmers as part of their Friday labor activities and would be joined by schoolchildren in the event of an agricultural emergency, such as a sudden frost. Work was allocated to teams and subteams according to physical ability. Most able-bodied men and women were assigned to rice-growing units, which required the most effort. Teams working in dry-field farming, fruit culture, sericulture, or aquiculture were composed primarily of women and the elderly. The management made every effort to distribute equally the most experienced and able farmers among the teams in order to prevent extreme variations in income. When possible, members of the same household were assigned to the same teams. Wages were distributed in both cash and kind. State farms accounted for only a small share of the agricultural population but were ideologically the most "advanced" type of agricultural organization. Both the means of production and the output were state owned, and farmers received standardized monetary wages on the basis of an eight-hour workday rather than shares of the farm's production. Managers of state farms were appointed by the state farm bureau of the national-level Agricultural Committee and ran their farms as if they were industrial enterprises. State farms were often model farms that experimented with new cropping methods, or specialized in livestock or fruit production. State farms were often coterminous with a county, and their larger scale allowed room for greater mechanization. Their operations were more efficient than rural cooperatives, although output per laborer was undoubtedly higher. State farms attempted to integrate all the agricultural and industrial activities of the county into one complementary and integrated management system. The County Cooperative Farm Management Committee Dissatisfied with low levels of agricultural production in the early 1960s, the government developed a new administrative structure in the countryside to perform for the rural cooperatives what the management of state farms was supposed to accomplish. The county Cooperative Farm Management Committee, established in 1962, took over all the economic functions of the county people's committees. The purpose of the new committee was to bring agricultural management closer to the ideal "industrial method," by which was meant "the strengthening of technical guidance of production and the planification and systematization of all management activities of the enterprise." The county committee gave the central government another instrument for calculating agricultural accounts and isolating problems. The composition of the management committee varied from county to county, but the staff usually consisted of agronomists, technicians, directors of county agricultural agencies, and where appropriate, forestry and fishery agents (see fig. 22). Typically the management committee chairman was in charge of bookkeeping, labor administration, and general management concerns. A vice-chairman usually handled logistics, supply, and construction, while a chief technician managed planning, production, machinery repair, irrigation, and other special departments dealing with technical guidance. The function of the committee was to set production targets for the cooperatives within its jurisdiction, allocate resources and materials necessary to achieve these goals, and to monitor the payment of wage shares and the collection of cooperative receipts. In many counties, "attached enterprises" specializing in the production of light industrial goods or food processing also came under the management of the committee. County managers reported to their counterparts at the provincial-level Rural Management Committee, who in turn directed all their reports to the General Bureau for Cooperative Farm Guidance at the national-level Agricultural Committee. One other important administrative change at the county level occurred in 1966, when the Farm-Machine Stations changed their assignment and fee system. Previously, these stations hired out both equipment and personnel to the individual cooperatives for set fees. This left many cooperative managers unhappy since the level of output from cooperatives varied and hence, so did their ability to pay. The reformed system assigned tractors, machinery, and personnel to cooperatives on a semipermanent basis. Wages and fees were calculated as shares in the total production of the cooperative. The machinery stations maintained one work team headquartered at the main office, which would make any major repairs of equipment. The stations were in charge of accepting and distributing newly made equipment to the cooperatives in conjunction with the county management committees. The Ch'ongsan-ni Method Together with the organizational reform which increased county-level supervision and guidance of the cooperative farms, the government implemented several changes in farm management to stimulate production growth. The major initiative began in February 1960 when, during an "on-the-spot" visit to the Ch'ongsan-ni Cooperative Farm, Kim Il Sung introduced the Ch'ongsan-ni Method-a technique subsequently adapted to industry as the Taean Work System. The avowed objective of the new method was to combat "bureaucratism" and "formalism" in the management system. The proposed remedy was to increase communication between the farmers and the managerial staff. Party cadres and administrative officials were to leave the comfort of their desks and go into the fields for guidance work in emulation of Kim Il Sung. The system also provided for farmers to explain their grievances and ideas to leading cadres and managers. Perhaps more important than the mobilization of administrative personnel in guidance work was the increased utilization of material production incentives, such as paid vacations, special bonuses, honorific titles, and reward funds. As in industry, workers competed for awards, often associated with a nationwide campaign such as the Ch'ollima Work-Team or Three Revolution Team movements. These types of prestige incentives associated with the party's intense political and moral leadership over economic production were supplemented with a practical array of monetary incentives. In fact, the Ch'ongsan-ni Method appeared to accommodate almost any expedient to spur production under its rubric. Since 1960 wages and shares of production have been distributed according to the "work-team preferential system." Under this accounting method, each work team returned 90 percent of its production quota to the management committee for inclusion in the "basic distribution fund." That amount in excess of 90 percent of the quota went into the work team's own reward fund. If a team failed to achieve 90 percent of its quota, a percentage of the deficit was subtracted from the distribution fund for that team. A farmer's wage share would come from both the basic and reward fund, taking into account the number of workdays the farmer had accumulated during the year. Workdays earned varied according to the type of labor performed, and thus it was possible for a farmer to earn more workdays than the number of calendar days worked. The "sub-team management system," which came into widespread use in 1966, furthered the use of material incentives on the cooperatives. The subteam assumed responsibility for a specific amount of land, animals, and equipment and for meeting a certain production quota. At the end of the year, the number of workdays for each farmer in the subteam was adjusted upward or downward according to over- or underfulfillment of the quota. These piece-rate systems worked together to stimulate competitive production. If a particular subteam performed well but other subteams failed to meet their quotas, it received little or no remuneration from the work team reward fund but at least a minimum from its own workday adjustment. In order to maximize earnings, the wage system inspired hard work within the subteams and cooperation within the work team. Continued poor harvests in the 1960s caused the government to decontrol aspects of production even further. Merely tolerated until 1964, peasant markets came to be regarded as necessary evils until the final stages of agricultural development. Families were allowed to cultivate private "kitchen plots" of about fifty p'yong (260 square meters). Farmers used these plots for raising crops or livestock for sale on the open market. The enactment of a new land law in 1977 reduced the legal size of such plots to twenty to thirty p'yong (sixty-six to ninety-nine square meters). Although the law foreshadowed the transfer of cooperatively owned land to "all-people's" ownership or state ownership, it was uncertain when or even if cooperative farms would be transformed into state farms. Kim was not pleased with all aspects of the state farms in the 1970s. Whereas the farmers on cooperative farms had a definite stake in maintaining equipment, on state farms equipment was often misused or let to lie in disrepair. Until such neglect of state-owned property could be rectified the government was not prepared to turn over the cooperatives to state management. Another major obstacle to the expansion of the number of state farms was simply the lack of mechanized equipment. Although the government appeared to be preparing the county management committees for future leadership of countywide state farms, references to the change to "all-people ownership" remained cautious. As Kim Il Sung said in his report to the Sixth Party Congress: "The switch-over of cooperative ownership to all-people ownership is as important an event as the agricultural cooperative movement. It is a very difficult and complicated socio-economic reform. Therefore, we must promote this work step by step accumulating experience through some experimental stage." Forestry North Korean forests were similar to those in Manchuria and China, producing a variety of trees and other plant life. Predominant trees included larch, poplar, oak, alder, pine, spruce, and fir. In the late 1970s about three-fourths of the total area of North Korea was made up of forests and woodlands; over 60 percent of these reserves were in the mountainous Hamgyong provinces and in Yanggang and Chagang provinces. Much of this area was severely damaged by overcutting during the last years of Japanese rule and by the effects of the Korean War. The government has promoted afforestation projects to make up for these losses, and during the First Seven-Year Plan an estimated 914,000 chongbo were planted with an average of 2,900 trees per chongbo. In the early 1970s, however, the rate of afforestation dropped to about 10,000 chongbo per year. In 1980 the government created a Ministry of Forestry to oversee the development of the forestry industry. The ministry sent agents to the county level to manage the rotation of harvests and replanting. Timber production was estimated at 600,000 cubic meters in 1977, basically unchanged since the late 1960s. The amount of fuel wood available for rural households increased by 11 percent from 1970 to 1977, when approximately 4.6 million cubic meters was used for heating. The creation of a new ministry perhaps signaled that the government would give greater attention to forestry in the Second Seven-Year Plan. Fishery With a coastline of about 17,000 kilometers, a mixture of warm and cold ocean currents, and many rivers, lakes, and streams, North Korea's potential for fishery development was better than most other countries. But it was not until the early 1960s that the domestic fishing industry began to expand rapidly, receiving increased investment in vessels, equipment, and port facilities. The total production of fishery commodities grew at an annual rate of 7 to 8 percent during the 1960s and 6 to 7 percent in the 1970s, and the total production in 1979 was somewhere between 1.8 and 2 million tons. The fish catch was about 65 percent of the total. The major fishing grounds were in the coastal areas of the Sea of Japan to the east and the Yellow Sea to the west; but in the 1970s deep-sea fishing began in earnest. About half the catch from the Sea of Japan was pollack, a favorite fish of most Koreans; sardine and squid catches were also significant. From the west coast, yellow covina and hairtail were the most common varieties of fish. Deep-sea catches included herring, mackerel, pike, and yellowtail. There were more than thirty state-run fishery stations in 1980, and about three-fourths of them were located on the east coast. The main fishery ports were Sinp'o, Kimch'aek, and the nearby deep-sea fishery bases of Yanghwa and Hongwon. Most of the large-scale storage and canning facilities were on the east coast as well. Besides the fishery stations, smaller fishery cooperatives were located along both coasts in traditional fishing centers. Aquiculture and freshwater fishing took place on regular cooperative farms and were administered through the national-level State Agriculture Committee and its network. In 1977 the government reorganized the fishery administration and pledged to continue improving port facilities and building bigger and better trawlers and processing ships. Improvements were slated for the fishery centers and deep-sea stations, and fishery cooperatives were reportedly given more autonomy to use their profits as they thought best. The government also urged the expansion of processing and storage facilities at the local level. In 1980 the largest stern-trawlers were of the 3,750-ton class, but most processing mother ships were imported. The completion of one 24,000-ton mother ship in celebration of the Sixth Party Congress was an indication of the government's commitment to improving the fishing industry in the Second Seven-Year Plan. The projected budget for 1980 called for a 70 percent increase in direct government investment in fisheries. The target for 1984 was 3.5 million tons of marine and freshwater fishery products, of which 2.7 million tons would represent the fish catch.