[KS] agricultural info

[Dr.Fendler Karoly]

Dear Mr.Lancaster,

I am afraid you cannot find "authoritative and comprehensive" sources about agriculture
in the DPRK - neither in English, nor in Korean. Pyongyang had never published the real
general statistics and analysis about them, but some basic laws and government instructions
were published earlier (in 50ies) in Korean only.(but as usual not in open editions). Officialy you had never knew how many kg grain need /chonbo (50kg!), how many kg need for state guarantee-fund (50kg!),and the average output/chonbo was secret,too. Of course,they published lot of partial propaganda datas of "success". The real situation was and remains a secret because of the real datas of population - cca 26 - 27 millions (grain per capita!!).In 2001 dear leader told "about 25 millions".(See K.Pulikowski memoires).

In ration per head the percent of rice was different,depended from the status, state reserves,
work situation,etc. In Winter and Spring often it was very low (20%!).

For the earlier period - till cca 1972 - as I know, the best analysis was a book in Russian:
"Shelshkoye  chozyaystvo KNDR" by  Marina Ye.TRIGUBENKO, Moscow,1973.,ed.Nauka.
136 p.  (Agriculture of DPRK). What that time could be told, she told openly or "betwen the
lines".
The WFP/FAO mission to Pyongyang made a serious and valuable work but I think it hadn`t
a possibility to have a real situation picture of  all the country.And it were a critical years for
the DPRK. (I spent nine year there, 1957/58 and  1960-1967, agriculture and population was one of my interests).

Sincerely,
Dr.Fendler Karoly
Budapest

 
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