SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korean chief Kim Jong Un has known as for a “radical enchancment” within the nation’s farm equipment sector, state media reported on Wednesday, because the reclusive state pushes for agricultural modernisation to sort out continual meals shortages.
Visiting a farm machine exhibition on Tuesday, Kim mentioned it was essential to map out a long-term growth plan to realize mechanisation of agricultural work for rural growth, KCNA information company mentioned.
A radical enchancment in farm industrialisation “is an pressing requirement” Kim mentioned, in accordance with the KCNA report.
The go to comes days after Kim laid out the nation’s financial targets for the New Yr, the place he mentioned stabilising agricultural manufacturing at a excessive degree was a key process.
On show on the exhibition have been a whole lot of various farm machines, together with tractors, rice transplanters and unmanned helicopters, KCNA mentioned.
The North has suffered severe meals shortages in current a long time, together with famine within the Nineteen Nineties, typically because of pure disasters. Worldwide consultants have warned that border closures in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic worsened meals safety.
North Korea’s crop output was estimated to have elevated year-on-year in 2023 as a result of beneficial climate circumstances, however in accordance with a South Korean official, nonetheless far under what is required to handle the nation’s continual meals shortages.
(Reporting by Soo-hyang Choi; Modifying by Lincoln Feast.)