South Hwanghae Province, a granary on the west coast of the country, completed rice harvest ahead of schedule, and led the whole country in threshing.

The local people say that the credit should go to the measures taken by the respected Comrade Kim Jong Un .

The following is how the 5 500 farm machines were provided.

In December last year, the Fourth Plenary Meeting of the Eighth Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea was held in the capital city of Pyongyang.

In the report, titled, Let Us Open Up a New Great Era of Our-style Socialist Rural Development , Kim Jong Un clarified the revolutionary policies and measures for increasing state investment in agriculture so as to radically consolidate the material and technical foundations of the rural economy.

On December 29, he said to the officials: At the Fourth Plenary Meeting of the Eighth Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea, we discussed about the immediate tasks for the correct solution of the socialist rural questions in our country, so the munitions industry should render assistance to the agricultural sector.

The next day when he met the officials again, he said he earnestly requested the munitions factories to produce farm machines on a high level.

His concern for the production of these machines continued to be shown.

On January 6 this year, when he met the senior officials of the Party and the government, he stressed the problem of farm machine production in particular and in detail, saying: What is more important is not to produce the fixed number of machines, but to produce advanced farm machines suited to our actual conditions; a comprehensive analysis of various farm machines should be made to supplement the excellent functions in a creative way, and their designs drawn up by reflecting the opinions of the end users; and when their trial products are built, they should undergo field test and be made perfect based on the local farmers’ opinions.

Several months later, he went over a document related to their production, which read that their exhibition had been organized, that a deliberation of those highly appreciated at the exhibition had been held, that their designs had been handed over for production, and that the trial products had undergone relevant field tests. And the opinions of officials in the province on the field tests were added to the document.

After seeing photos of trial farm machines, he gave instructions on urgently removing the shortcomings revealed in the tests and dynamically pushing ahead with their serial production, taking relevant measures.

Under his energetic guidance and deep concern, officials and working class of the munitions industry turned out in a few months 5 500 farm machines including mobile combined rice stripper-thresher, small rice harvester, combined maize stripper-thresher and combined soil preparation machine.

In September last the 5 500 farm machines stood in rows in Haeju Square and its surrounding roads, covering over 60 000 m 2 as large as eight football stadiums.