(NewsDakota.com/USAgNet) – North Korea recently instructed agricultural officials to focus on wheat farming as part of nationwide efforts to change the country’s “grain production structure.” In fact, the authorities are reportedly creating an atmosphere that condemns people expressing negative opinions about wheat farming as “factional elements.”

According to a Daily NK source in North Korea last Thursday, the country’s authorities issued the instructions to provincial agricultural village financial committees and city agricultural village management committees in early December, and even held video conferences pertaining to the order.

In the instructions, the authorities acknowledged the negative results of this year’s wheat farming; namely, that it did not achieve its planned goals.

However, the instructions pointed out that if farming officials and farmers assume all of their responsibility and adopt scientific farming methods, “difficulties can be overcome to some degree.”

The authorities accused critics who call wheat farming inappropriate for North Korea or a “premature agricultural policy” of being “modern-day factional elements.”

The section of the instructions that mentioned “factional elements” introduced the anecdote of how late North Korean leader Kim Il Sung emphasized steel production during the post-war reconstruction period.

After the Korean War, while performing on-the-spot guidance at a steel plant, Kim said if North Korea could produce just 10,000 tons more of steel, the country would be able to be proud of itself.