Kim Jong-un, chairperson of North Korea's State Affairs Commission, visited a livestock farm that produces dairy products, touting it as a standard model for rural development and again emphasizing a plan to raise the livestock industry to a world-class level.
Korean Central News Agency reported on the 3rd that the Chairperson delivered a historically important speech at the inauguration ceremony of the Pyeonganbuk-do Rural Economy Committee Samgwang Livestock Farm held the previous day. Senior officials from the party, government, and military, as well as officials from the party's central leadership bodies, accompanied the event.
The Chairperson called the newly launched Samgwang Livestock Farm "a true transformation of the Unjon County area, long steeped in backwardness, into a standard entity showing the future of modern rural areas and animal husbandry," adding it was "a real earth-shaking change."
Noting that the party had conceived and pursued the construction of a "modern standard livestock farm" specializing in dairy production for years, the Chairperson claimed that informatization, intelligence, intensification, and industrialization were realized at a high level at the Samgwang Livestock Farm. The Chairperson went on to say, "Here in Samgwang-ri, the outlook for socialist rural development is clearly presented," and emphasized, "We must expand the experience and achievements accumulated during the construction process to other regions and push rural development into a new stage of qualitative transformation."
Comparing the level of domestic livestock farming with that abroad, the Chairperson said that rather than heaving vague sighs, if each province successively establishes practical livestock bases based on the experience of creating the Samgwang Livestock Farm, the livestock industry can make a leap forward. The Chairperson also called for setting a goal to ensure that dairy products such as milk, butter, and cheese, as well as meat products, are consistently supplied not only to children but also to elementary and secondary students and, further, to the entire population.
The speech also mixed in criticism of past rural policies and implementation methods. The Chairperson said, "To achieve the target of the relevant project, tasks were directly assigned to and overseen by a core department of the party Central Committee," and pointed out, "We must first break the habit of doing things sloppily and unscientifically." The Chairperson also used the expression, "It is no exaggeration to say that in rural construction in the past period, it was all just talk."
The Chairperson was also reported to have indicated that the livestock base in the Sepo area of Gangwon Province, touted as a major achievement, was "in the same situation," implying that its results fell short of expectations.
Meanwhile, attention is also being paid to the trend of the Chairperson inspecting economic sites such as a large-scale greenhouse farm and a dairy production base in a series of public appearances ahead of the 9th Congress of the Workers' Party of Korea. There is analysis that by presenting the greenhouse farm and the Samgwang Livestock Farm as new standards that each unit should study and emulate at the forthcoming party congress, there is an intention to press and encourage greater economic performance.