Hunger and its causes

North Korea
On the Sambong Cooperative Farm in rural North Korea, farmers have been repairing and recycling equipment dating back to the 1950s for years. Resources are stretched to the limit as lack of trade, energy and raw materials have made it impossible to get replacements.

Chon Chung Ki, manager of the Sambong Cooperative Farm in North Korea, displays a tractor that farm engineers fitted with the motor from an MCC-provided irrigation pump. The motor can be used to alternately run both the tractor and the pump, which is mounted on the rear of the tractor. (MCC photo by Lee Wheeler)

The lack of modern equipment leaves the country's farmers at a significant loss. The less than 20 percent of North Korean land that is farmable does not produce enough to feed the country's 22 million people. Coupled with several prolonged droughts over the past decade, North Korea's isolationist policies have brought the country to the brink of economic collapse.

Swallowing its pride and its staunch belief in self reliance, North Korea appealed to the international community for assistance in the mid-1990s. About one-third of North Koreans now receive food aid.

The country's economy now depends on outside aid. MCC is helping North Koreans solve their food shortage problems.

MCC, together with the American Friends Service Committee, supports Sambong and three other North Korean farms by providing equipment, financial assistance and educational exchanges to help the farmers increase their crop yields.

In September MCC sent used grain drills (for planting seeds) and harrows for each of the farms. Mennonite farmers in Kansas refurbished the old equipment. The drills can be used for planting such crops as corn, wheat and soybeans, which North Korean farmers currently plant by hand.