South Korea to provide North Korea with farm technology next year
(AP)
Updated: 2005-08-20 13:07

South Korea will start providing agricultural technology and equipment to selected North Korean farms next year in a joint-venture program aimed at easing the North's food shortages, officials in the South said Saturday, reported AP.

The farming agreement, made during their first-ever talks on agricultural cooperation, underlines "a long-term goal to help North Korea create the foundation for self-reliant farming and improve its agricultural structure," the South's Unification Ministry said in a statement.

The agreement was reached in two-day talks that ended Friday in the North Korean border city of Kaesong, the statement said.

The joint-venture farms would be the first of their kind created at the government level in the North, whose state-run collective farms have been unable to meet demands, forcing millions to survive on foreign aid.

Officials have said the two will begin running an unspecified number of joint farms in 2006 and start more later.

This year, South Korea has pledged 500,000 tons of rice and 350,000 tons of fertilizer, some of which has already been delivered.

Since their historic summit in 2000, the two have launched several joint economic projects including an industrial park in Kaesong.