North Korea takes to human waste amid ban on fertiliser

North Koreans have been asked to stockpiles human waste to help the country’s agricultural sector, according to the Mirror.

The Mirror reported tales of survivors of the the nation’s brutal regime who said leader Kim Jong-Un and other authorities were demanding human feces to help farms in the country to continue delivering crops.

North Korea used to rely on neighbour South Korea for fertiliser but in 2010 South imposed an embargo after the North sank one of its ships. South Korea sent some supplies last year but relations are deteriorating once again.

According to The Star, Yeonmi Park, who escaped from North Korea in 2007, wrote of her experience of how families were forced to collect animal and human faeces to make up the shortfall.

“The government came up with a campaign to fill the fertiliser gap with a local and renewable source: Human and animal waste. Every worker and every school had a quota to fill. You can imagine what kind of problems this created for our families.”

“Every member of the household had a daily assignment, so when we got up in the morning, it was like a war. My aunts were the most competitive,” Yeonmi Park said.

Canada’s National Post reported that shops even began selling it in 2010. In her memoir, In Order To Live, Yeonmi Park says: “Our bathrooms were far away from the house, so you had to be careful the neighbours didn’t steal from you at night. Some would lock up their outhouses. At school the teachers would send us out into the streets to find poop and carry it back to class.”