"Let's exchange grass for meat" is the slogan of a nationwide grass-eating domestic animal raising campaign North Korea has been waging since the mid-1990s as a means of alleviating the perennial food shortages and improving diets. Kim Jong Il himself has ordered the raising of domestic animals fed on grass, according to North Korean publicity material. Hwang Jang-yop, the former secretary of the North's Workers' Party Central Committee who defected to the South, disclosed in a book published in 1999 that Kim Jong Il initiated the campaign in 1996 by adopting a recommendation given him by the then North Korean ambassador to Switzerland, noting that "the Swiss use no grain, but only grass in raising cows and sheep."

The raising in quantities of grass-eating domestic animals like goats, sheep and rabbits explain Pyongyang authorities produces milk, meat, butter, cheese and yogurt, contributing toward alleviating the food shortages and improving the diet. Since 1999 the North has been aggressively encouraging the raising of goats because compared with other livestock, they are more viable and prolific, and need less labor in farming and securing feed. As a result, plant seeds are being collected on a large scale, pastures developed, large-scale goat farms and goat-specialized livestock bases built, livestock teams expanded at farm cooperatives, and goat raising teams and sub-teams built at farm cooperatives across the country. In addition, the Agriculture Ministry has created a Pasture Development Bureau.

Members of youth organizations such as the League of Socialist Working Youth and Children Corps collect plant seeds systematically in autumn. White Dutch clovers, acacia and oats are the most prolific seeds collected. Pastures are developed in non-arable fields, mountain slopes and cliffs by slashing trees and erecting fences. The construction of goat farms and goat-specialized livestock bases is one of those projects most actively pushed through in the North at the present time. Such projects are rapidly spreading across the country since Kim Jong Il inspected the Youth Goat Farm in Hamhung, South Hamgyong Province in May 1999, during which he instructed that goats be raised around the county learning from the experience there.

"Tens of goat-specialized livestock farms have been built or are being built across the country since May last year," reported the North Korea Central News Agency on November 28, quoting statistics of the Agriculture Ministry. "Once they have been completed, the country will be able to produce tens and thousands of tons of goat milk, processed food, cheese as well as meat."

While expanding livestock teams at farm cooperatives, North Korea also built goat-specialized livestock teams and sub-teams in farm cooperatives, numbering slightly over 2,300 throughout the country last year, according to Radio Pyongyang. But livestock teams and sub-teams at farm cooperatives don't function properly in the face of the food shortages, claimed recent North Korean defectors. During winter when no green grass is available, they say, grass-eating domestic animals including goats must be fed grain or other feed to maintain their viability. Because of the scarcity of feed, not a small number of grass-eating domestic animals have recently starved to death in the North, added the defectors.

(Kang Chol-hwan, nkch@chosun.com )