North Korea's cooperative farm account settlement and sharing, starts early in November when harvests are completed. Though the event, which should be an occasion of celebration for the farmers, has long been a mere formality in the wake of the serious food shortages in the 1990s, it is still no doubt a special occasion for the farmers.

Upon concluding a year's farming, each cooperative farm closes its accounts and determines shares for its members. With farming expenses spent on seeds, fertilizers and agricultural chemicals, irrigation costs, farm implement rents, and joint saving funds deducted from total output, the farm fixes a share for each of its members according to the quantity and quality of the labor he or she has provided in the pertinent year.

Shares calculated based on the quantity of farming labor input during the year are notified to the members through work teams usually about ten days prior to the formal account settlement and sharing meeting. Discrepancies between individuals' workday pocketbooks and notified shares are rectified in advance through reviews.

Such a meeting is held at the farm's Culture Center with all the members attending. Morning hours are devoted mostly to ideological lectures, party policy explanations and singing, and account settling and sharing are done in the afternoon. Following the singing in chorus of "The Song of General Kim Il Sung" and "The Song of General Kim Jong Il," the cooperative farm chairman delivers an account settlement report, enumerating projected targets, actual performances and revenues in cash, among others.

The report is followed by the recommendation of outstanding farmers and presentation of shares to them. Each work team is entitled to recommend one distinguished farmer who has worked most enthusiastically, who as a result gets the biggest share among his colleagues. At the meeting they are given an envelope each, containing a slip of paper listing the kind and quantity of crops and the amount of cash to be given them. Cash of around NKW1,000 is delivered to them simultaneously, according to North Korean ?igr? living in the South.

Upon receiving the envelopes, cited farm members make brief speeches, attributing their accomplishments to the self-reliance farming formula advocated by the late President Kim Il Sung and pledging further devotion to farming the next year than this year, and shout three cheers to the Kim Senior and Junior. Their fellow members clap their hands and repeat the three cheers.

The meeting concludes with singing by entertainment members of work teams, who sing to the accompaniment of accordions and guitars.

Ordinary cooperative farm members return to their respective work teams and receive envelopes with slips describing the contents of their shares. Having been informed of the shares in advance, they don't feel any special sentiments. They are distributed with crops in kind and cash, as recorded in the slips. Crops they get are usually corns and rice in the ratio of 7:3.

Farm members normally get a total of 340kg of un-hulled corns and rice, the amount of which is adjustable by labor input. Slightly varied as it is depending on region, few farmers receive more than 340kg of crops across the country, and 20-30% of them, having failed to achieve even 50% of the requirement, have to struggle with hunger throughout the a year, say the defectors.

Even if they are allotted with 340kg of crops, having fulfilled the labor requirement, what they actually receive may amount to no more than about 270 kg, because they are obliged to donate rice under the name of patriotism, military and strategic uses. The 270kg is a mere minimum annual requirement for a family to barely sustain themselves, says a North Korean defector. Cash is not handed at the time of account settling and sharing, but given in the form of a bank deposit, which can hardly be withdrawn because banks lack cash, he adds.

(Kim Kwangin, kki@chosun.com )