This relationship of trust has been broken by the authorities, which will be an unfavorable factor for the collective farms,” said Seo.

Another North Hamgyong resident told RFA that the mercantile class has all the money in North Korea.

“The country doesn’t have the money. … Farms don’t have money to buy gasoline, so they borrow the money from the rich. They have to plow the fields, but they can’t run the tractors without gas, which they have to buy illegally,” the second North Hamgyong resident said.

The sudden cancellation of farm debt is causing confusion among farm managers this year because the farms are still supposed to be self-reliant even if they cannot find funding, a resident of South Pyongan, north of the capital Pyongyang, told RFA.

“The farm officials are urgently visiting the rich lenders on the down low to ask them to lend them money again this year. They say they will pay back even more than double,” the South Pyongan source said.

“If they refuse to lend, some of the officials are even offering to lend them farmland,” he said.

North Korea canceled collective farm debt only once before — in the 1960’s — under the rule of Kim Jong Un’s grandfather, national founder Kim Il Sung.

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