Today the socialist countryside in the DPRK is undergoing a sea change. This clearly proves the great vitality of the rural construction programme in the new era set forth by the Workers’ Party of Korea.

In recent years, moving into new houses in the cultured rural villages has become an almost daily routine in the DPRK.

Now it has been a commonplace to watch on newspapers and TV the happy appearance of the agricultural workers as owners of the modern new houses.

Last year, luxurious houses were built for ordinary farmers in a little more than 130 days in North Phyongan, Jagang and Ryanggang provinces which had suffered from flooding.

In the past three years over 1 500 modern rural villages with high- and low-rise and terraced houses have been built across the country and a total of 80 700 flats have been newly built there. All the villages retain the features of the relevant regions—the coastal, plain and mountainous areas. All of the houses were allocated to agricultural workers free of charge.

The country’s vast fields undulate with golden ears every year.

In particular, as the grain production structure of the country has changed into the rice, wheat and barley farming, a sea of barley and wheat is sprawling over the country.

Last year alone, the area under wheat cultivation expanded by tens of thousands of hectares over the previous year and the per-hectare yield remarkably increased. Consequently, the number of farms which produced over six tons of wheat per hectare totalled more than 140.

Last year, the country produced hundreds of thousands of tons of grains more than planned while attaining the national grain production goal despite consecutive drought, high temperature and heavy rains.

As a result, the country’s grain production continues to grow, and the livelihood of farmers is being remarkably improved.

Works for readjusting and reinforcing the irrigation system of the country were dynamically pushed ahead to guarantee a rich harvest year after year, unaffected by the vagaries of the weather, with the result that irrigation system for hundreds of thousands of hectares of farmland was completed in 2023 and 2024.

The completed irrigation projects include the desalination project of Lake Kangnyong for supplying water to thousands of hectares in the water-deficient areas in Kangnyong and Ongjin counties in South Hwanghae Province, the Chongchon River-Phyongnam irrigation waterway for the Yoltusamcholli Plain and the Hwangju Kindung waterway, the country’s sixth large-scale gravity-fed waterway.

The irrigation system covering the whole country enables its farmers to do farming without worry about water.

Many modern farm machines were supplied to farms across the country.

More than 5 500 farm machines were sent to farms in South Hwanghae Province in 2022, to be followed by a large number of farm machines provided to different farms in 2023 and 2024.

An increase in the proportion of work done with machines has freed the agricultural workers from labour-consuming work and raised the per-hectare grain yield.

The development of the farm machine industry of the country was fully demonstrated by the hundreds of kinds of farm machines, including tractors, rice-transplanting machines, wheat and barley planters, mobile maize combined threshers and others which were on display at the exhibition of farm machines held under the title of Farm Machine Industry Development-2023.

Jong Hwa Sun