Agroforestry is not rocket science but it might save DPR Korea

Terra Daily via SPX: There is more going on in DPR Korea than rocket science: local people in collaboration with natural resources scientists are taking control of their food supply through agroforestry. This is according to a report published in Agroforestry Systems journal.

The report notes that in DPR Korea a bottom-up participatory process of developing locally appropriate agroforestry has been a revelation to many and is helping to reverse the chronic food shortages and land degradation of the 1990s.

Xu Jian Chu, lead author of the report and head of the East Asia Node of the World Agroforestry Centre, says that, "The emergence of agroforestry as a way of managing sloping land highlights how food technology innovations can take root once social and institutional constraints to land access have been reduced."

... In the early 2000s, in order to reverse degradation, increase yields and generate more income from mountains and hills, the Ministry of Land and Environmental Protection introduced the Sloping Land Management project.

The project uses innovative agroforestry technologies to provide food, fodder and other products for local people while restoring degraded land. Working through partners, the project helped establish user groups, design agroforestry systems and implement agroforestry trials with monitoring and evaluation occurring at all levels....

The Joint Security Area on the Korean Peninsula, shot by UNC - CFC - USFK, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license