ⓒ KBS News

With the latest inter-Korean summit in Pyongyang providing a bridgehead for an improvement in relations between South and North Korea, cross-border economic cooperation is expected to enter a new phase. Attention is also drawn to bilateral cooperation in the farming area as well, since humanitarian aid could be offered to this non-political area even under sanctions against North Korea. Agricultural cooperation can bring the two Koreas together and also address chronic food shortages in the North. But in fact, the blueprint for South-North agricultural cooperation was drawn back in 2005. 

On August 20, 2005, the Inter-Korean Agricultural Cooperation Committee reached a 7-point agreement following lengthy negotiations that started from August 18^th and lasted until the early morning of the 20^th in the North Korean border town of Gaeseong. The committee was the first consultative body between South and North Korea in the field of agriculture. Under the agreement, North Korea would select a few collective farms in particular regions, while South Korea would provide them with facilities to raise seedlings as well as farming materials and technology. The two sides promised to develop bilateral projects in agricultural science and industry, as well as to exchange genetically modified crop resources and breeding techniques. Previously, North Korea had been rather passive and uncooperative with regards to agricultural exchange. But chronic food shortages and malnourishment finally forced the North to the negotiating table at the Gaeseong meeting.

North Korea had been suffering from chronic food shortages dating back to the so-called “Arduous March” of the 1990s when inefficient and outdated agricultural practices were compounded by natural disasters, producing a nation-wide famine. In a desperate effort to increase agricultural output, North Korea agreed on some farming projects with South Korea during those first farm talks in Gaeseong. That marked a new beginning of inter-Korean agricultural cooperation. Let’s hear from Baek Jeong-min, secretary-general of the Unification Agriculture and Fisheries Project, an organization under the Ministry of Unification. 

Our group nurtured collective farms in Songdo-ri and Samilpo in North Korea for three years. The development of cooperative farms was one of the seven points agreed upon at the inter-Korean farm talks. A collective farm involves almost all elements of agriculture, including fruit growing, vegetable cultivation, rice farming, pig-raising, and stockbreeding. So, by developing collective farms, we can assess North Korean agriculture overall. Also, how to develop collective farms in North Korea would be very important when we carry out large-scale agricultural development projects in the future. In short, we first worked on collective farms on a trial basis prior to major farming projects. 

South and North Korea did conduct some limited agricultural cooperation before 2005. But mostly, South Korea offered food, fertilizer, and/or farming tools to the North, in what was thinly veiled emergency aid. However, developing collective farms was different. It meant a fundamental change in Seoul’s agricultural aid for North Korea. That is, the focus of aid was shifted to helping the North improve agricultural productivity so North Korea would be able to resolve its own agricultural problems in a comprehensive way. A new organization named the Unification Agriculture and Fisheries Project was launched for the purpose of fulfilling this ambitious mission. To start with, it carried out the pilot project of developing collective farms. 

In the initial stage, we had difficulty understanding the different agricultural terms used by North Korea. Also, North Korea’s state ideology juche or ‘self-reliance’ had its own proscriptions for farming practices. Farmers there tried to glean everything from juche textbook written by Kim Il-sung. The North Koreans were so proud of juche farming techniques that they said they didn’t need technology and practice exchanges with the South Koreans at all, only asking us to provide them with agricultural materials, fertilizer, and pesticides. 

The South Korean organization began to engage in farming business jointly with collective farms in Gaeseong and the Mt. Geumgang region. In the latter, 11 farms covering 1,200 hectares of land participated in the project. But it got off to a shaky start, as Mr. Baek said. Under the trial project, South Korean agro-technicians would visit the North to teach modern agricultural techniques and practices, in addition to the provision of materials and facilities. However, North Korea demanded the South function merely as a conduit for materials like fertilizer and pesticides. Mr. Baek, however, refused to back down. 

We persuaded the North Koreans to compare their “juche farming” to our scientific farming. They agreed, and we conducted an experiment. The result was 1.8 tons of rice per 990 square meters of farmland in the case of North Korea’s juche farming. In the same size of land using modern techniques based on science, the rice yield more than doubled to around 4 or 5 tons. Having seen that, the North Koreans came to understand the situation and eventually accepted South Korean technology and farming practices. 

As an experiment, the collective farm in Samilpo decided to introduce both North and South Korean farming technology and practices. To demonstrate South Korean farming skills, the group planted superior rice varieties and used South Korean farming equipment, including rice-planting machines. Also with support by South Korea’s Rural Development Administration, the farmland using the South Korean method had a successful harvest, which was more than twice the amount produced by its North Korean counterpart. 

In addition to rice farming, North Korea was very interested in pig-raising techniques and breeds of pigs because there were few animal protein sources in the nation. Our project of raising pigs proved greatly successful, and we later heard that Pyongyang highly evaluated it and the person in charge of the project won official commendation. 

Joint agricultural programs included improving the seeds of corn and potatoes and creating poultry farms and greenhouses to grow vegetables. But Mr. Baek cites the pig-raising project as one of the most successful examples of inter-Korean agricultural cooperation. When a pig farm in Seongbok-ri in the Mt. Geumgang area turned out well, North Korea proposed setting up more such farms, including in Geumchon-ri and Samilpo. Encouraged by these positive outcomes, South Korea’s Unification Ministry planned in 2007 to establish a special agricultural zone near the Gaeseong Industrial Complex. As a big step forward from the 2005 inter-Korean agricultural agreement, the plan sought to create a special zone to assemble farming facilities for balanced development of agriculture in preparation for a peaceful era of inter-Korean relations. The two Koreas convened a committee meeting in Gaeseong on December 14 and 15, 2007, to move forward with the plan. Unfortunately, South-North agricultural cooperation has been suspended since North Korea’s second nuclear test in 2009. But thankfully, this year a series of meetings between the leaders of the two Koreas have created a peaceful mood in the region, and the organization is now preparing to resume joint farming programs with North Korea. 

We’ve already asked the Unification Ministry to examine the projects we had proposed ten years ago. Personally, I hope to create an environmentally-friendly agricultural complex in North Korea. As we know, South Korea has used a large amount of chemical fertilizer in agriculture in the course of rapid economic development. It has contributed to enhancing productivity but has also generated the side effects of damaged soil in farmlands and farm products that are not environmentally friendly. In comparison, North Korea is relatively underdeveloped, so I think the land is ideal for large-scale green farming. An environmentally-friendly agricultural complex in the North could be a base for exporting agricultural products to foreign countries, including Japan and China. This is one of the businesses I really hope to carry out.