Tokyo, 21 March, /AJMEDIA/
Hundreds of thousands of North Korean troops are mobilizing to help plant and harvest crops. The country’s military is rejiggering some of its munitions factories to produce tractors and threshing machines, while also converting some airfields into greenhouses. Soldiers are reportedly being asked to extend their service by three years and spend them on farms.
The directives have come straight from North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un, who has called for his military to become “a driving force” in increasing food production.
It is both an economic imperative and a geopolitical calculation for an isolated nation facing food shortages. Sanctions imposed since 2016 over the North’s nuclear program have devastated its exports and ability to earn hard currency. Then the pandemic and the resulting border closures squeezed what little trade remained with China.