North and South Korea join to set-up hog farm
It was announced yesterday by a South Korean official that a jointly operated hog farm will be established in the North Korean capital Pyongyang in a combined effort by both North and South Korea to help alleviate the communist North’s drastic food shortages.
Significant step
This significant step is part of a series of accords to ease cross border tensions and increase economic trade reached by both leaders – President Roh Moo-hyun (South Korea) and Kim Jong Il (North Korea) – in early October.
North Korea was ravaged by famine in the mid-1990s and has been struggling to increase its production of grain in recent years.
Two-year trial
The farm will be operated out of Pyongyang firstly for a two-year trial period. Around 5,000 hogs are to be bred there.
The hogs, feed, equipment and other materials to build the farm will be provided by South Korea and the land, electricity, water and labour will come from the North Korean side.
Park Won-jae, a spokesman at South Korea’s Unification Ministry in Seoul, commented that the ‘animals are not intended for export to South Korea of elsewhere’. “They are being raised to solve the North’s food shortage problem.”
Related website:
• Unification Ministry of South Korea
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