Conference may have been delayed because some regions had failed to complete the threshing of the grain harvest

North Korea has postponed an agricultural workers conference originally scheduled to be held in Pyongyang this month to January next year, sources revealed on Dec. 26.

Given North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s continued emphasis on the importance of agricultural production in the face of international sanctions, the conference was expected to be a large-scale meeting involving all the country’s agricultural workers.

North Korea held its first agricultural conference in nine years last December. Moreover, following its meeting last year, the National Meeting of Activists of Rural Youth Workteams and Subworkteams held another national meeting this March.

North Korean officials have organized a series of agricultural-related conferences in recent years aimed at encouraging increases in agricultural production.

According to Daily NK sources, the country’s farming sector has again failed to produce significant results this year. The conference acts as a form to discuss solutions for the country’s agricultural problems.

North Korean authorities reportedly said that the conference was delayed because some regions of the country had yet to complete the threshing of the grain harvest. Daily NK sources reported, however, that many North Koreans see the unstable domestic and international situation, including the deadlock in US-North Korean negotiations, as the main cause for the delay.

In addition to the deadlock in US-DPRK relations, many experts say that North Korea’s so-called “new path” has yet to produce any concrete policy direction or positive results for the country.

Moreover, discussions to be made during the just-held plenary meeting of the 7th Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK) likely reflected the country’s broader economic and political difficulties.

Lim Eul Chul, a professor at the Institute for Far East Studies at Kyungnam University, told Daily NK that “with the US-North Korean relationship currently in a slump, the [North Korean] leadership is likely worried about its future course of action.”

The WPK likely attempted to solidify internal unity through the plenary meeting of the Central Committee, Lim added.

*Translated by Gabriela Bernal

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