The Seventh Plenary Meeting of the Eighth Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea set forth the tasks and practical ways for doing this year's farming well and bringing about a radical change in agricultural production. It also stressed the importance for the sector of agricultural science to play a significant role in the struggle for implementing the programme of rural revolution in the new era.

In this regard, KCNA met Kim Jong Nam, vice-director of the Academy of Agricultural Science, on March 25.

KCNA: We believe that the tasks and roles of the agricultural science research sector are of great importance in the development of agriculture of the country.

Vice-director: At the plenary meeting, the respected General Secretary Kim Jong Un earnestly said at the plenary meeting that this year’s farming should be done well and the foundation laid for the country’s agriculture to develop safely free from crop failure.

The plenary meeting of the Party Central Committee adopted more effective measures to put agriculture, one of the two branches of socialist economic construction, on a stable and sustainable development track in the near few years.

The militant tasks set forth at the plenary meeting are the supreme order given by the Party Central Committee to the scientists and technicians in the field of agriculture.

We set important and practical steps for implementing the resolutions of the plenary meeting and are putting spurs to the researches on them.

KCNA: What research work is being currently promoted by the Academy of Agricultural Science?

Vice-director: The current scientific research focuses on breeding new strains and introducing advanced cultivation techniques.

Precedence is given to the researches into rice, spring wheat, maize and potato strains with short growing period and high productivity under the climatic conditions and natural and geographical features of the country.

Double-cropping is an important way of increasing grain production in our country where the area of cropland is limited.

The academy is intensifying the research into cultivation technology and method for increasing per-hectare yield in double-cropping, and the techniques and methods for boosting yield in tidelands with high salinity and water shortage.

It is also conducting a research into new herbicide, along with various kinds of effective soil disinfectant, ameliorant and microbial fertilizer.

Meanwhile, it is pushing ahead with the work to put the agricultural scientific and technological basis on a high level, including developing the scientific research units related to agricultural production into cutting-edge bases.

In order to increase grain production radically, it is necessary to put agriculture on an IT basis, just as in all other sectors.

The academy has developed a real-time service program with the use of smart phones for diagnosing the nutritional state of crops in fields and monitoring the occurrence of weeds and blights, and rapidly and accurately regulating the kinds of fertilizer and agricultural chemicals, the timing and quantity of sowing. And it has pushed ahead with the work for developing the agriculture into advanced and modern agriculture including the spreading of agricultural chemicals and fertilizer with drones.

KCNA: We believe that the active use of satellite information data is of great importance in developing those projects. What are the exact plans that are being pushed forward in the field of putting the agriculture on an IT basis?

Vice-director: In our country, various activities are already under way to use satellite information for agricultural production.

An agriculture aid information system is also helpful to ensuring right crop on the right soil and the right crop in the right season as it regularly provides the agricultural field with such information as regional sunshine, precipitation, temperature, soil humidity, etc, and to putting the farming processes including sowing, fertilizing and crop rotation on a scientific basis.

Real-time data acquisition from the satellite is a challenge to be solved in scientific farming.

In our country, the development of space is being dynamically pushed forward under the unified guidance of the state. The agricultural sector will make a leap forward when the working satellites form a network in space and lay the foundation for providing real-time satellite information.

All the scientists of the academy are full of enthusiasm to fulfill their mission and duty in developing the country's agricultural science and technology.

KCNA: We hope that the Academy of Agricultural Science will achieve great successes in scientific research.