page_title: Economy of North Korea
section_title: Agriculture
hierarchical_section_title: Economy of North Korea / Economic sectors / Food / Agriculture
caption_attribution_description: English: Rice fields of DPR Korea
context_page_description: The economy of North Korea is a centrally planned system, where the role of market allocation schemes is limited, although increasing. As of 2020, North Korea continues its basic adherence to a centralized command economy. There has been some economic liberalization, particularly after Kim Jong-un assumed the leadership in 2012, but reports conflict over particular legislation and enactment. According to economic freedom ranking by Heritage Foundation, North Korea's economic freedom score is 5.9, making it the least free of the 180 economies measured in the 2019 Index.
  The collapse of the Eastern Bloc from 1989 to 1991, particularly North Korea's principal source of support, the Soviet Union, forced the North Korean economy to realign its foreign economic relations, including increased economic exchanges with South Korea. China is North Korea's largest trading partner. North Korea's ideology of Juche has resulted in the country pursuing autarky in an environment of international sanctions. While the current North Korean economy is still dominated by state-owned industry and collective farms, foreign investment and corporate autonomy have slightly increased.
context_section_description: North Korea's sparse agricultural resources limit agricultural production. Climate, terrain, and soil conditions are not particularly favorable for farming, with a relatively short cropping season. Only about 17% of the total landmass, or approximately 20,000 km², is arable, of which 14,000 km² is well suited for cereal cultivation; the major portion of the country is rugged mountain terrain.
  The weather varies markedly according to elevation, and lack of precipitation, along with infertile soil, makes land at elevations higher than 400 meters unsuitable for purposes other than grazing. Precipitation is geographically and seasonally irregular, and in most parts of the country as much as half the annual rainfall occurs in the three summer months. This pattern favors the cultivation of paddy rice in warmer regions that are outfitted with irrigation and flood control networks. Rice yields are 5.3 tonnes per hectare, close to international norms. In 2005, North Korea was ranked by the FAO as an estimated 10th in the production of fresh fruit and as an estimated 19th in the production of apples.
  Farming is concentrated in the flatlands of the four west coast provinces, where a longer growing season, level land, adequate rainfall, and good irrigated soil permit the most intensive cultivation of crops. A narrow strip of similarly fertile land runs through the eastern seaboard Hamgyŏng provinces and Kangwŏn Province, but the interior provinces of Chagang and Ryanggang are too mountainous, cold, and dry to allow much farming. The mountains contain the bulk of North Korea's forest reserves while the foothills within and between the major agricultural regions provide lands for livestock grazing and fruit tree cultivation.
  Since self-sufficiency remains an important pillar of North Korean ideology, self-sufficiency in food production is deemed a worthy goal. Another aim of government policies—to reduce the gap between urban and rural living standards—requires continued investment in the agricultural sector. The stability of the country depends on steady, if not rapid, increases in the availability of food items at reasonable prices. In the early 1990s, there were severe food shortages.
  The most far-reaching statement on agricultural policy is embodied in Kim Il-sung's 1964 Theses on the Socialist Agrarian Question in Our Country, which underscores the government's concern for agricultural development. Kim emphasized technological and educational progress in the countryside as well as collective forms of ownership and management. As industrialization progressed, the share of agriculture, forestry, and fisheries in the total national output declined from 63.5% and 31.4%, respectively, in 1945 and 1946, to a low of 26.8% in 1990. Their share in the labor force also declined from 57.6% in 1960 to 34.4% in 1989.
  In the 1990s, the decreasing ability to carry out mechanized operations (including the pumping of water for irrigation), as well as lack of chemical inputs, was clearly contributing to reduced yields and increased harvesting and post-harvest losses.
  Incremental improvements in agricultural production have been made since the late 1990s, bringing North Korea close to self-sufficiency in staple foods by 2013. In particular, rice yields have steadily improved, though yields on other crops have generally not improved. The production of protein foods remains inadequate. Access to chemical fertilizer has declined, but the use of compost and other organic fertilizer has been encouraged.
caption: Crops growing in North Korea
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