N. Korea wants more control over farming amid food shortage
Associated PressSEOUL, South Korea — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un vowed to strengthen state control over agriculture and take a spate of other steps to increase grain production, state media reported Thursday. “If authorities view markets negatively, they can’t be properly recovered.” Lim Eul-chul, a professor at Kyungnam University’s Institute for Far Eastern Studies in Seoul, said the latest North Korean meeting was meant to review the progress in existing long-term strategies to improve national food production, remind officials of related goals and discuss ways to implement them. North Korea’s 2022 grain production was estimated at 4.5 million tons, a 3.8% drop from a year earlier, according to South Korean assessments. South Korea’s spy agency has said North Korea needs 5.5 million tons of grain to feed its 25 million people each year.