Why agricultural reform may appear on the Worker’s Party Congress agenda, and why it might not

By Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein

At this time of writing, the 7th Party Congress of the Korean Worker’s Party is only one day away. In the runup to the congress, as is natural, there has been much speculation about what the congress content will actually be. Most analyses seems to believe that personal and institutional decisions will be at the center, but there have also been speculations that policy proclamations may be made in areas such as agriculture.

This post is not an attempt at forecasting, an often fruitless endeavor.  Rather than predictions, this post offers a few reasons why agricultural reform may be on the agenda for the congress in some shape or form, and a few reasons to believe the opposite.

Why agricultural reform may show up…

The first thing to note is that the North Koreans themselves rarely (or never) use the term “reform” to describe economic policy changes. If such changes are announced, they will probably be called “improvements” or simply “changes”. In any case, the arguably strongest reason to believe that liberalizing policy changes may appear on the congress agenda is that they seem to be working, at least from the perspective of the North Korean government.

Recall that last summer, North Korean press touted the efficiency of the small work-team structures and similar management policy changes in agriculture. Contrary to recent reports about reduced harvests due to the drought, North Korean media claimed that harvests were going up. Earlier, in 2012, journalists were invited to farms to hear farmers themselves speak about the policy changes, a clear indication that the regime was comfortably and formally toying with the rules. At least for some farmers: it is very possible that the reforms were rolled out on a trial-basis, and that they later got stuck in the bureaucratic mills or were deemed too radical. In sum, North Korean media outlets themselves have touted the reforms as successful, and though media reports do not amount to official policy proclamations, they are often good indicators for what’s going on behind the scenes.

…and why it might not.

On the other hand, agriculture has been conspicuously absent from several major publications and proclamations about policy priorities and successes over the past year. For example, agriculture only showed up once in the slogans the regime published earlier this year, while industry received several central shout-outs. Reforms or policy changes in agriculture were not mentioned at all. There are also reasons to doubt that agricultural reforms really did have a strong impact on harvests in 2015 — the increase in harvest output began earlier than state media started mentioning reforms.

Moreover, reports on economic output which the regime published only a few days ago only mentioned agriculture almost in passing. The reports only spoke about how farmers had diligently met their quotas for gathering fertilizer, and did not mention policy changes:

Farming preparations were brisk on the agricultural front, resulting in a 1.7 and 2.8 times growth in the securing of hukposan and microbial fertilizers and an over 1.3 times increase in the acreage of field carpeted with humus soil.

[…]

The production of homemade fertilizers and their transport, tractor overhauling and maintenance and other farming preparations are nearing completion thanks to the devoted drive of agricultural workers across the country.

[…]

Such successes are reported from railway, agricultural and other industrial sectors.

It’s socialist economics as usual, in other words: people work hard according to the planned quotas, and fulfill them because the state told them to do so. Moreover, the Washington Post’s report on Wednesday from a collective farm near Pyongyang did not mention any talk of policy changes in agriculture.

None of this sounds like the propaganda buildup one would expect in the weeks before a grand policy announcement. At least we won’t have to wait too long before we know.

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