June 17 is the World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought.

The United Nations has recently said that 40 percent of the world land mass has been devastated. The report noted that as natural resources ran out of the world and water and biodiversity disappeared in many places, useless land has been turned into wasteland and half of the world population has been suffering from their effects. It also asserted that the earth loses its capability for absorbing and storing carbon due to land deterioration, with the result that global warming is accelerating. Unless urgent steps are taken, the land which is as large as the size of the South American continent, would be more devastated by 2050, it warned.

More than 110 countries of the world are suffering from the effect of desertification, and the random cutting of forests including tropical forests and reclamation of farmland are further accelerating desertification.

On the occasion of the 2022 World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought, the Secretariat of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) called on all countries to raise public awareness with emphasis putting on overcoming drought and cooperate each other to this end.

A signatory of the UNCCD, the campaign to combat desertification and drought is going on vigorously in the DPRK as a national and all-people undertaking under the positive guidance and support of the Workers’ Party of Korea and the state.

Modern tree nurseries and sapling greenhouses built throughout the country are annually producing hundreds of millions of saplings of good species, and forest restoration campaign involving the spring and autumn tree planting is being conducted on a regular basis.

The country is preventing soil erosion and improving the fertility of soil and its water holding capacity by positively introducing plant cover, non-ploughing, minimum management of soil, rotation of crops and other protective farming methods as the main basis. In addition, it widely applies agroforestry to protect soil and get high economic profits.

With a grand goal to newly complete hundreds of thousands of hectares of dry-field irrigation system in a few years, it keeps pushing the construction of gravity-fed waterway after completing an irrigation system for watering tens of thousands of paddy and dry fields by building several large-scale gravitational waterways.

A comprehensive management system has been established to prevent flood damage and effectively use water resources by using a basin management technology based on satellite image data, and reservoirs, catchment grounds and erosive and slide prevention facilities are reinforced.

Organic compound fertilizer factories have been built across the country and different highly-effective microbial fertilizers have been developed to make a tangible contribution to preventing land devastation and sustainably improving the fertility of soil.

We will perform our duty and role with credit to protect the land of the country and attain the sustainable development of agricultural production, and keep pace with the world effort to combat desertification and drought.