With Chinese New Year slowing down imports from China, North Korea mobilises people to collect manure by reducing markets’ operating hours. This controversially pushes up food prices.
Pyongyang (AsiaNews) – North Korean authorities have imposed limits on the operating hours of local markets nationwide to encourage people to go into the fields to collect manure to use as fertiliser at a time of shortages in chemical fertiliser. To do this, operating hours were cut from the regular 8 am-9 pm to 4pm-9 pm.
Such mandatory mass mobilisation campaigns, or “battles” as the regime calls them, are frequent in North Korea, where authorities use them to mobilise manpower for various projects and measure citizens’ loyalty to the state and the Korean Workers’ Party.
“North Korean authorities have changed the operating hours of local markets to the same operating hours as they did last year during the ‘200-day battle’ period starting on Jan. 9, which is the day after [leader] Kim Jong Un’s birthday,” a source from Jagang province told Agence France-Presse.
The 200-day battle refers to restrictions imposed during a five-year plan, which had the controversial effect of pushing up the prices of groceries, including eggs, tofu, and bean sprouts.
North Korea made a large purchase of crude oil at low prices from Russia last year, so the country was able to produce a considerable amount of fertiliser on its own. However, importing fertiliser from China is difficult this year.
There is now a slowdown in trade with China as many private Chinese traders who operate in North Korea return home to celebrate the Lunar New Year, sources said.