North Korea party meeting set to discuss 'urgent' food issue

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea has scheduled a major political conference to discuss the “urgent task” of improving its agricultural sector, a possible sign of worsening food insecurity as the country's economic isolation deepens amid a defiant nuclear weapons push.

North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency said Monday that members of the ruling Workers’ Party’s Politburo met on Saturday and agreed to hold a larger plenary meeting of the party’s Central Committee in late February to review strategies on agriculture and set new goals. It said the Politburo members acknowledged a “a turning point is needed to dynamically promote the radical change in agricultural development.”

“It is a very important and urgent task to establish the correct strategy for the development of agriculture and take relevant measures for the immediate farming … to promote the overall development of socialist construction,” the KCNA said.

The Politburo meeting came amid indications that the country was preparing to stage a massive military parade in Pyongyang, possibly this week, to glorify the rule of leader Kim Jong Un and his growing collection of nuclear-capable weapons, which he has aggressively pushed to expand despite limited resources and economic decay.

Although not unprecedented, it’s uncommon for North Korea to hold two different party plenaries in a span of two months. It’s also rare for North Korea to call a plenary meeting over a single agenda, this time agriculture, South Korean Unification Ministry spokesperson Koo Byoungsam said in a briefing.

“The government will closely watch North Korea’s food situation and internal trends,” said Koo. He said South Korea estimates that North Korean food production fell by about 4% in 2022 to 4.5 million tons.

Following the...