North Korea’s office and factory workers have been dispatched to farming areas around the country to join a fight against drought, state media reported yesterday, amid concerns over prolonged food shortages.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un had called for measures to improve a tense food situation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and typhoons, despite slight improvements early last year.
Drought and floods have long posed a seasonal threat to North Korea, which lacks irrigation systems and other infrastructure, while any serious natural hazards could cripple its reclusive economy.
Government officials, and company and factory workers joined hands with farmers nationwide in distributing pumping equipment and developing water resources in drought-prone regions, the North’s Rodong Sinmun newspaper reported.
It did not specify any damages so far, but said that the efforts are aimed at countering an ongoing dry spell and bracing for an upcoming drought.
“Systematic, aggressive efforts are under way to raise public awareness and mobilize all available capabilities to prevent crop damages from drought in advance,” the paper said.
North Korea’s weather authorities on Tuesday forecast prolonged dry weather across the country until early next week, the official Korean Central News Agency news agency reported.
The weather agency last week said that the average temperature for April was 2.3°C higher than usual, with just 44 percent of its average rainfall nationwide.
In Anju and Kaechon, north of the capital, Pyongyang, people created ponds, added fertilizer and growth enhancer to crops, and sent tractors, trucks and cultivators to carry water to farms, the Rodong Sinmun said.
Another dispatch said that young labor units have recently built waterways in the eastern port city of Hamhung as part of efforts to modernize and expand irrigation facilities.
The World Food Program estimated that even before the pandemic hit, 11 million, or more than 40 percent of the population, were undernourished and required humanitarian assistance.
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