In the policy speech he made at the Fifth Session of the 14th Supreme People’s Assembly, the respected Comrade Kim Jong Un clarified the plan on boldly changing crop distribution and set forth relevant detailed tasks at the Fourth Plenary Meeting of the Eighth Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea held several months later.

In his report Let Us Open Up a New Great Era of Our-style Socialist Rural Development made at the discussion of the third agenda item of the meeting, he said that what the Party gives priority to in developing agricultural production at present is to change the grain production structure of the country and powerfully propel rice and wheat farming, stressing that it is high time to change the dietary culture and lifestyle of our people by shifting their diet to the one with rice and flour food as the staples.

Until then, rice and maize were the main crops in the country.

It was in the latter half of the 17th century that maize began to be cultivated in Korea. At first, five to six plants of maize were cultivated per phyong around houses. It gradually became a major crop along with rice because of its high yield and wide range of utilization among dry-field cereals.

It is beyond imagination merely with ordinary determination and preparation to change the structure of grain production, which has been maintained for hundreds of years, on a nationwide scale, not in one or two regions.

But the undertaking is being dynamically pushed forward thanks to the love and will of Kim Jong Un who intends to provide the people with more cultured dietary conditions.

The wheat growing area has been increased in a planned way to meet the needs for rice and wheat in the country and advanced cultivation methods and machines introduced into farming positively.

Efforts have been made to drastically increase the wheat processing capacity while building wheat drying facilities. For the present, farms are encouraged to gain experience of wheat farming. And a series of problems have been solved in time, including the establishment of an effective nationwide system of providing seeds of high-yielding varieties and other necessary farming materials.

Now, only a few years after the Party put forward the policy on changing the structure of grain distribution, the policy is clearly demonstrating its validity and enjoying full support from farmers all across the country.

Last year the area of wheat cultivation increased by tens of thousands of hectares across the country over the previous year and the per-hectare yield of wheat rose rapidly in many units from the farms on the plains on the west coast to those in the east coastal area and the remote mountain farms in the northern end of the country. According to data available, over 140 farms harvested more than six tons of wheat per hectare.

“When we increased the acreage of wheat and barley on a large scale for the first time, we were worried about it, but now it’s quite interesting” and “This time we planted wheat as the main crop and have had great benefits from that. Its yield was higher than that of maize.”

These are what farmers say in unison.

Thanks to the implementation of the Party’s new agricultural policy, the people’s dietary life will be further civilized and the grain output of the country will increase markedly in the near future.