Potato is the third major food crop after rice and maize and the history of its cultivation is nearly 200 years in Korea.
The DPRK, most of whose territory is mountainous, suffered serious setbacks in the agricultural production in the past due to various natural and geographical conditions and natural disasters.
Therefore, it was an important issue to increase potato yield and the government has shown growing concern over it.
As potato cultivation was encouraged as the first crop of double cropping in the lowlands as well as in the northern highlands, the potato acreage has expanded gradually across the country.
As a result, tangible achievements have been made in the breeding of good potato strains, establishment of new cultivation methods and others.
First of all, many good potato varieties have been bred and diversified to suit the geographical features of the fields and regional varieties selected on the whole.
As the country’s agricultural ecological conditions are diverse, so are the demands of the varieties.
Accordingly, long-season or intermediary long-season varieties with a growing period of 115-135 days and which are highly resistant to blights have been selected for the northern highlands such as Ryanggang and North Hamgyong provinces and early- and very early-maturing ones with a growing period of 90-110 days as the first crop of double cropping in the lowlands including South Hwanghae and South Phyongan provinces.
A virusless potato minituber production and supply system has also been established.
Modern potato minituber production facilities combining tissue culture and hydroponics have been built on a large scale across the country including in the agricultural biology institute of the Academy of Agricultural Science and Taehongdan County of Ryanggang Province to put the potato minituber production on a regular footing and establish a potato seed production system in hydroponic greenhouse.
New potato cultivation methods and advanced potato cultivation technologies have widely been developed and applied to practice.
The agronomists and farmers in Taehongdan County of Ryanggang Province created a model of high-yield potato cultivation by doing all farm work, such as sprouting, soil fertilization, seed sowing, soil heaping around plant and blight control, scientifically in line with the biological characters of potato. The core of the Taehongdan-style scientific potato farming method is to sow full potato as seed, raise ridges by plowing and weeding and make an effective use of excrement from the pig farm as a source of organic fertilizer. The farming method has now widely been introduced into the lowlands as well as the highlands including the county.
In the flat areas potato is grown as a catch crop and simultaneous crop with maize, bean and autumn vegetables.
With the potato acreage expanding and its production increasing, the country pays growing attention to potato processing.
Last year the modern Samjiyon Potato Farina Factory was newly built in Samjiyon County, Ryanggang Province, which produces a large quantity of potato farina of high nutritive value.
As potato starch which retains the unique taste of potato has a rich content of nutritive substances including carbohydrate, protein and oil, it is widely used as a substance for making such common foods as noodles, twisted doughnuts, bread and cake.
The Rangnang Potato-processing Factory in Pyongyang produces crunchy potato chips with distinctive flavour that are enjoyed by all.
Well over 100 kinds of potato foods are served at various public catering facilities across the country, such as frozen potato-bean cake noodles, half-moon-shaped frozen potato cake stuffed with crushed beans and flavoured with pine needles, potato tea, and roasted potato.
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