While the DPRK leadership fire rockets into space, the North Korean people fire earth

On the 12th of February, the North Korean regime conducted a nuclear test that is likely to have cost millions of dollars. On that very day, the state newspaper Rodong Sinmun published an article with the headline, “At the Town Co-operative Farm in Chaeryong County, great efforts are invested into firing earth to create baked soil.” In the aftermath of the rocket launch and nuclear test, the North Korean regime has been boasting that “there is no match for us in the whole world”; yet it is urging its own citizens to employ such primitive agricultural methods as firing earth to produce baked soil.

North Korean exile Kim Young-man described a phone conversation he had on the 14th of February with his elder brother in North Korea. According to Young-man, his elder brother complained, “In wintertime, there is not even enough fuel for cooking, yet the Party units are demanding baked soil from us. They say that we can bake soil on the stove every time we cook a meal, but getting a fire going is expensive.” He finished by saying, “What’s the point of a nuclear test? If they tested it on the farm, wouldn’t that bake the soil?” And according to sources, Young-man’s brother is not the only one upset with the order from above to offer up contributions of baked soil.

Over the years, the North Korean authorities have made various attempts to increase agricultural output. The most frequently trialled methods have consisted of human waste gathering and soil replacement. The human waste is used as manure on acid soil due to a lack of fertilizer; while soil replacement is like changing soil in a plant-pot that has run out of nutrients. From the beginning of 2000, a nationwide movement ordered every North Korean family to produce 100 kilograms of human waste and dig 200 kilograms of soil. Nevertheless, this movement failed to produce the desired increases in agricultural output.

In this context, ‘soil baking’ was introduced eight years ago. The official state media concluded in an official announcement that years of experimenting showed that baking soil was an efficient way of increasing agricultural output. Apparently, state researchers experimented for years to come up with this method, in an effort to increase agricultural efficiency: according to the theory, baking earth alters the chemical composition in the soil and makes it rich in nutrients.

Therefore again in January 2013, the North Korean authorities began to issue orders for soil baking through Party units and every workplace, in the manner of human waste gathering and soil replacement movements that took place previously. The quota for an individual is to produce 200 kilograms of baked soil, which in theory requires 200 kilograms of fuel. This is an extremely burdensome request: for most North Koreans, burning fuel for heating is a luxury, and even washing in hot water is considered wasteful. For this reason, it is said that some are dying unbaked soil and mixing it with baked soil to fulfill the quota.

While the North Korean regime fires rockets into the sky and conquers even space, it cannot supply basic fertilizer for its citizens down on earth. What the North Korean people desperately want from their regime is genuine fertilizer experimentation and not a rhetorical one; and definitely not nuclear experimentation.

Let’s concentrate on baking soil to increase agricultural output!