Opinion

In our country various industrial crops are under cultivation. There are such fibre crops as cotton, hemp, reed and sedge, such oil-bearing crops as perilla, sesame, rape, peanut and sunflower, such medicinal plants as insam, cassias, liquorice and adlay and such crops for luxury items as hop and tea. We also grow such sugar-containing and aromatic crops as sugar beet, stevia, sugar cane and peppermint.

These industrial crops are major raw materials for consumer goods, contributing to improving the people’s standards of living and quality of life.

Sunflower, for example, has considerable merit. It gives us cooking oil and its cake is used as a material for food industry or feed for domestic animals. Its flower is pleasant to see and good for beekeeping. As the ash of the stem of sunflower has high potassium and phosphorus content, it can be used as fertilizer. 

As the area under cultivation is limited in our country, we widely introduce main crop culture, preceding crop culture, afterculture and inter aftercropping and raise various industrial crops along the edges of fields and by the roadsides on a large scale.

Each area cultivates a variety of industrial crops to suit its climate and topographical features and expands the areas of such crops.

In particular, since the Sixth Plenary Meeting of the Eighth Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea, we have expanded the areas of industrial crops like oil-bearing and sugar-containing plants to contribute to improving the people’s living standards.

Kaesong City has also increased the area of Kaesong Koryo insam, a speciality of our country.