A step forward has been taken in the work to lay the foundation for agricultural production of the country amid the dynamic all-people drive to implement the programme for the rural revolution in the new era put forward by the Workers’ Party of Korea.

According to the WPK's policy of continuously increasing the area under plough by concentrating national efforts on the acquiring of new land and the reclamation of tideland, more than 58 500 hectares of new land have been secured and registered as agricultural land and over 21 000 hectares of farmland have been restored across the country over the past six years.

At the Fifth Plenary Meeting of the Seventh Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea held in December 2019, the Party set forth the task of consistently pushing ahead with the work to secure arable land across the country. It organized the work on a large scale to decisively increase the cereal-growing area by finding out more arable land.

The movement for acquiring new land was conducted as an all-inclusive mass drive.

The relevant officials in the capital, provinces, cities and counties made an analysis of the satellite image data and grasped the actual situation of the use of land of each sector including forest land and water area land. On this basis, they steadily increased the area of new land and registered it as agricultural land.

In North Phyongan Province, cities and counties made scientific surveys of land ownership of each region and unit and acquired more than 4 510 hectares of arable land in the first year alone.

North Hwanghae Province positively improved rivers, realigned the environs of villages and ridges between paddy fields and straightened waterways, thus putting over 6 100 hectares of land under plough.

South Hwanghae Province carried out the plan for acquiring new land and South Phyongan Province also secured a large area of arable land by fully grasping the situations of the environs of public buildings and railways, improving rivers and carpeting water area land with humus soil.

Vigorous efforts were made to restore and retrieve farmland in all parts of the country.

Projects for establishing irrigation systems in the water-deficient areas were carried out at a lightning speed. As a result, more than 8 300 hectares of paddy fields, which had been turned into dry fields, became able to be irrigated sufficiently, thus providing a sure guarantee for increased grain production.

While state measures were taken to minimize flood damage, nearly 8 000 hectares of land which had been washed away or buried due to flood were retrieved and restored.

A campaign was conducted to grasp all the fields, from which no full crop yield could be expected as they had turned into forests or grassland or their soil fertility had been low, and improve their soil so as to increase the grain-growing area.

Officials and working people in all parts of the country reclaimed grassland and improved the soil fertility, thus making it possible to plant cereals on more than 5 400 hectares of land which had not been used because of unfavourable conditions for cultivation.