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Korea's Natural Resources: I. Issue Research

North Korea relies heavily on its Public Distribution System (PDS) to provide food to its population as domestic agriculture is insufficient. Through the PDS, the government allocates stockpiled grains and other goods to citizens, with higher officials and urban residents receiving preferential treatment. However, floods and production decreases have reduced PDS rations over time. While the system was the primary source of food, illegal private markets have grown in importance since the 2000s as the government has gradually liberalized trade.

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38 views

Korea's Natural Resources: I. Issue Research

North Korea relies heavily on its Public Distribution System (PDS) to provide food to its population as domestic agriculture is insufficient. Through the PDS, the government allocates stockpiled grains and other goods to citizens, with higher officials and urban residents receiving preferential treatment. However, floods and production decreases have reduced PDS rations over time. While the system was the primary source of food, illegal private markets have grown in importance since the 2000s as the government has gradually liberalized trade.

Uploaded by

ConnieRoseRamos
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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I.

ISSUE RESEARCH

Korea's Natural Resources

North Korea 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.

In North Korea, the land is 18% arable. In South Korea, only 22% of the
land is arable. Korea is mostly mountains and the weather always varies, so it is
hard for Korea to have good agriculture. Korea's climate does not help their
agriculture. The best time for Korea to grow crops is in the Spring. Other seasons
are often to rainy, too hot, or extremely cold, especially in the winter

They produce minerals such as gold, silver, coal, lead, zinc, copper, salt and
iron. They produce the basic metallic minerals It is easy to accumulate the
minerals in the northern part of Korea, and harder to get minerals in the south.

Korea has many lush forests. Most of the forests are located in South Korea.
65% of Korea is surrounded by forests. Deforestation is an issue in Korea. As I
mentioned earlier, Korea has weak agriculture, and so they cut down their trees
to make room for rich land in which they will grow their crops on.

Since Korea's does not have sufficent agriculture, they do not have
enough food to export, as well as feed their country. They mostlty export their
mineral resources, for they do not produce enough agriculture.

There is enough water provided for the people in Korea for now, but
reshearchers say that the percentage of the water quality is getting worse as the
years go by. The poor quality of the water went from 3.6% in 2003 to 6.3% in
2006. One of the many possible reasons that this is happening is because of
people throwing all the trash into the sea or the rivers. Water can be used for
navigation in Korea because water is 3/4 of Korea. It would be easy to enter or
leave Kroea by boat. Hydroelectricity is how water can be used to generate
electricity. Korea is surrounded by water, there for making it easy to produce
elctricity by the flow of water.
Since the 1950s, a majority of North Koreans have received their food through
the Public Distribution System (PDS). The PDS requires farmers in agricultural
regions to hand over a portion of their production to the government and then
reallocates the surplus to urban regions, which cannot grow their own foods. About
70% of the North Korean population, including the entire urban population, receives
food through this government-run system.

The North Korean PDS is officially divided into three subtypes. The first one
(paegup in Korean) is the distribution of grain, such as rice, barley or corn. Rice is
considered the most prestigious, and people of higher social status or Pyongyang
residents tend to get more rice than others do. Grain is distributed twice a month
and one gets it either in his/her workplace or in a grain distribution center.

The second category (konggup) covers pretty much everything else but grain,
i.e. all other food, clothes, house appliances, etc. And here, the priority is given to
Pyongyang residents and party bureaucrats, providing them with a much higher
social status than the rest.

Finally, the third type (punbae) is given only to farmers: These are the seeds
and sprouts they are supposed to plant in their collective farm.

Before the floods, recipients were generally allotted 600-700 grams per day
while high officials, military men, heavy laborers, and public security personnel were
allotted slightly larger portions of 700-800 grams per day. As of 2013, the target
average distribution was 573 grams of cereal equivalent per person per day, but
varied according to age, occupation, and whether rations are received elsewhere
(such as school meals).

Decreases in production affected the quantity of food available through the


public distribution system. Shortages were compounded when the North Korean
government imposed further restrictions on collective farmers. When farmers, who
had never been covered by the PDS, were mandated by the government to reduce
their own food allotments from 167 kilograms to 107 kilograms of grain per person
each year, they responded by withholding portions of the required amount of grain.
Famine refugees reported[ that the government decreased PDS rations to 150 grams
in 1994 and to as low as 30 grams by 1997.

It is estimated that in the early 2000s, the average North Korean family drew
some 80% of its income from small businesses that were technically illegal (though
unenforced) in North Korea. In 2002, and in 2010, private markets were progressively
legalized. As of 2013, urban and farmer markets were held every 10 days, and most
urban residents lived within 2 km of a market, with markets having an increasing
role in obtaining food.

North Koreans do not know much about the situation with the PDS in other
countries, but some conclude that if there is a PDS, there is also rice, so if there is
rice, the PDS must also exist. There is a popular story about an older North Korean
woman who said that she knew the truth the authorities had been hiding from her:
The American people actually do live well. The state distributed 800 grams of pure
rice per day to everyone – even to babies.

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