Cultures of Resistance

The disastrous famine that struck North Korea in the mid-1990s caused an estimated 1-2 million people to die of starvation, and its legacy of agricultural dysfunction has persisted to this day. Moreover, severe flooding in recent years, regional political conflict, and the global food and economic crises have raised the prospect of yet more food shortages in the country.

In an effort to help North Korean farmers get beyond the famine and improve their food security, we have supported the work of Agglobe International in rural North Korea. Agglobe, a Minnesota-based 501c3, has secured a contract with the government of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea--the first contract of its kind--to help rehabilitate and develop four cooperative farms situated between Pyongyang and Kaesong.

In the past, Agglobe has purchased and planted cotton and trees at the farms; at the Ryun Pyong-Ri cooperative farm, for example, which has a population of 645 families (3,000 people), farmers plant 400 hectares of food crops and 180 hectares of cotton. As a cash crop, they are able to sell cotton to the government and eventually for export, which has enabled them to purchase other critically needed supplies such as medicine, clothes, and blankets.

With a grant from our foundation, Agglobe has also purchased several species of tree saplings, such as acacia, fast growing poplar, dates, persimmon, and apple trees for the spring, and pine and spruce trees for the fall. The hills surrounding the North Korean countryside have been largely deforested due to the severe energy crisis that hit the nation in the early 1990s. The people, without any other source of energy to cook food or heat their homes, were forced to cut down the trees of the surrounding landscape to survive. Agglobe works to help farmers plant fruit and leguminous trees that can revitalize the soil.