The full letter is as follows:

Greeting the 50th anniversary of the publication of the socialist rural theses, the Workers' Party of Korea has decided to hold this National Conference of Subworkteam Leaders in the Agricultural Sector in order to bring about innovations in agricultural production under the unfurled banner of the theses.

Participating in this conference are the exemplary subworkteam leaders and officials in the agricultural sector, who have overfulfilled their grain, vegetable, meat and fruit production plans by displaying patriotic devotion so as to bring earlier the day when our people would enjoy an affluent and happy life to their heart's content.

I sincerely congratulate the participants; I also extend warm greetings to all the working people and officials in the agricultural sector who have reliably defended the socialist agricultural front and to the service personnel and other people who have rendered wholehearted support to the countryside under the Party's leadership.

By making public "Theses on the Socialist Rural Question in Our Country" 50 years ago, the great leader Comrade Kim Il Sung illuminated for the first time in history the way for solving the rural question. The theses is an immortal classic that gives perfect answers to all the theoretical and practical problems arising in solving the rural question; it is our Party's great programme for socialist rural construction. That the great leader published the rural theses constitutes an imperishable historic exploit he performed for accomplishing the cause of independence of the masses, the cause of socialism.

Since the rural theses was made public, sea changes have been witnessed in socialist rural construction in our country.

The ideological and cultural revolutions have been promoted successfully in the countryside, with the result that the ideological and spiritual qualities of our agricultural working people have been transformed remarkably and a great development has also been achieved in the realm of cultural life in the countryside. Today our agricultural working people have become dependable fighters on the socialist agricultural front who, equipped with the Juche idea and Songun idea and firmly rallied behind the Party and their leader, work devotedly to execute the Party's agricultural policies. Their cultural and technical standards have been raised beyond comparison, the rural villages turned into socialist cultured ones, and thus the differences between the urban and rural areas in the cultured living conditions reduced considerably. With the forceful promotion of the technological revolution in the countryside, great strides have been made in irrigation, introducing electricity and ma

chinery in farm work, applying agrochemicals and realigning the farmland across the country as befits that of a socialist country, and the material and technological foundations of agriculture have been consolidated.

The historic sea changes that have taken place in our country's rural areas are clear proof of the validity and vitality of the socialist rural theses advanced by President Kim Il Sung. As they have the immortal programme for solving the rural question, our people have been able to create a brilliant example of socialist rural construction.

The rural theses is a great banner our Party will hold aloft invariably in socialist rural construction.

By carrying out the tasks set by the socialist rural theses, we should bring about a fresh turn in rural construction in the new century and ultimately solve the rural question.

The countryside should promote the ideological, technological and cultural revolutions more forcefully.

Primary effort should be channelled into the ideological revolution, so as to arm all the agricultural working people with Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism and train them to be rural revolutionaries in the Songun era who work faithfully for the interests of their community and society and for their country and fellow people and dedicate their pure conscience and sincere efforts unsparingly to the country's agricultural development. The agricultural working people should be imbued with a thoroughgoing faith in socialism and steadfast anti-imperialist and class consciousness so that they can regard our style of socialism as their life and soul, love it ardently and fight staunchly against the imperialists’ moves for ideological and cultural infiltration.

If we are to successfully build a socialist civilized country, which our people are desirous of, and ultimately solve the rural question, we should step up the cultural revolution in the countryside. The countryside, upholding the slogan of making all the people well versed in science and technology, should actively propagate scientific and technological knowledge, so that all the agricultural working people can learn advanced farming techniques and operate modern technical means skilfully; it should also ensure that a greater number of the agricultural working people are involved in the study-while-you-work system. Conditions should be created so that they can enjoy a cultural and emotional life to their heart's content and, by laying out the rural villages in a more cultured way, it should turn them into a civilized and beautiful socialist fairyland.

In line with the demands of the era of science and technology, the informatics era, it should promote the rural technological revolution, thus making the material and technological foundations of the rural economy firmer and steadily putting agriculture on a higher scientific and modern footing. By comprehensively introducing machinery in the rural economy and widely applying agrochemicals, it should narrow the differences between the agricultural labour and industrial labour and completely free the farmers from back-breaking labour. And by building new irrigation facilities and widely introducing a variety of modern irrigation methods while following up the successes already achieved in rural irrigation, it should perfect the irrigation system.

The most important task facing the agricultural sector at present is to do farm work well so as to radically increase agricultural production.

The agricultural front is an outpost in the battle of defending socialism and a major thrust of the effort in building our country into a socialist economic giant.

The imperialists, who are not desirous of seeing us prospering and well-off, are intensifying pressure and economic sanctions against our country, resorting to sinister schemes to force our people to experience shortage of food so as to undermine the faith in socialism implanted in their minds. We must farm well by all means and solve the people's problem of food satisfactorily; by so doing, we can smash the enemy's anti-DPRK, anti-socialist schemes. As our country has already attained the status of a politico-ideological power and a military power, our style of socialism will remain unperturbed and we can push forward the revolution and construction with pluck and on our discretion whatever the enemy's moves only if we achieve self-sufficiency in food by farming well.

As the agricultural problem is so important, our Party has defined the agricultural front as a major thrust of our effort in building an economic giant, and this year it has called on the agricultural sector to hold in the van the torch of innovations in building a thriving socialist country.

In this meaningful year, when we mark the 50th anniversary of the publication of the socialist rural theses, the agricultural sector must farm well and thus meet without fail the grain production quotas set by the Party and the state. And from the year 2015, when we will greet the 70th anniversary of the founding of the Workers' Party of Korea, it must hit higher grain production targets.

While decisively increasing grain production, it must bring about fresh innovations in the vegetable, livestock, fruit and all other branches of the rural economy.

In order to radically increase agricultural production, the sector must do farm work scientifically and technologically in line with the demands of the Party's agricultural policies and Juche farming method.

The Juche farming method is an invaluable asset the great Comrade Kim Il Sung created and bequeathed to us. It is our style of farming method that suits the actual conditions of our country and an advantageous scientific and intensive farming method that enables us to harvest high and stable yields under any unfavourable natural and climatic conditions.

Having defined the Juche-based and scientific farming method, which the great leader created with so much effort, as the Juche farming method, the great Comrade Kim Jong Il energetically led the effort to implement the method. With an insight into the demands of the developing reality, he advanced the Party's policy of agricultural revolution in the Songun era aimed at applying the Juche farming method in a more thoroughgoing way and thus opened a new avenue for solving the rural question.

The fundamental key to increasing agricultural production in our country, where the area of crop land is limited, is to raise the unit-area yield to the maximum by doing farm work scientifically and technologically as required by the Party's agricultural policies and Juche farming method.

First of all, it should revolutionize seed production.

The main thing in farming is seed. The agricultural sector should hold the seed as the main thing and pay primary attention to solving the seed problem. It should develop strains that give high yields, demand little amounts of fertilizer, are short in growing periods and are resistant to drought, rainstorm, pests and various other harmful factors under our country's climatic and soil conditions. While developing superior strains by itself, it should also show concern about introducing high-yielding strains from other countries.

Seed selection should be improved. The agricultural sector should carry on seed selection properly on a scientific and technological basis and produce and supply good seeds to meet the needs of each region and cooperative farm. Modern seed processing factories should be built as required by the age of scientific farming, and a system established whereby all the seeds are screened, sorted out and coated in a comprehensive manner and supplied to cooperative farms.

Innovations should be effected in farming methods.

An important reserve for increased agricultural production lies in radically improving farming methods in keeping with the latest trend of agricultural development.

Crops and varieties should be distributed on the principle of sowing the right crop on the right soil and at the right time, and manuring and cultivation should be carried out on a scientific and technological basis.

They should be distributed in line with the regional characteristics and natural and climatic conditions. Crops that grow well in relevant regions should be cultivated on a large scale: stress should be put on rice and maize farming in the areas where they grow well and on potato farming in the areas where it is fruitful. Since natural and climatic conditions vary with each region and each farm and there is difference between fields on a farm, it is necessary to figure up scientifically which crop and variety are profitable before distributing the most suitable ones.

Cooperative farms should carry out every farming operation in the right season and in a qualitative manner on the basis of making scrupulous preparations for each farming process. There should be no tendency towards indiscriminately dictating to lower units to do something by any time without taking into account the natural and climatic conditions and specific situation of the relevant region on the pretext of ensuring timeliness in farming.

It is important to apply fertilizer to crops in a scientific and technological manner in the manuring and cultivating process. It is necessary to apply effective fertilizing methods to suit the characteristics of crops and the stage of their growth in order to ensure that larger quantities of grains are produced with less fertilizer. The practice of clinging only to nitrogenous fertilizer should be eliminated, and phosphatic, potassic and silicon fertilizers and different kinds of microelement fertilizers should be applied in a balanced manner. Cooperative farms should rid themselves of the outdated practice of controlling water and applying fertilizers and agrochemicals by eye and hand measure, and turn to advanced manuring and cultivation methods based on scientific measurement and analysis.

Advanced farming methods and techniques should widely be introduced.

At present, the agricultural sector is researching and introducing a variety of farming methods that boost the yield drastically with less seeds, work force and farming materials, and they should widely be popularized. Cooperative farms should actively introduce double and triple cropping based on earlier and later crops and intercropping whose advantages have been proved by practice, and carry on grain-to-vegetable and grain-to-cash crop cultivation scientifically and efficiently, while giving priority to grain-to-grain and grain-to-potato farming, thereby raising the rate of land utilization and the level of intensive farming.

Organic farming should be encouraged proactively.

Fundamental to organic farming is to produce and use large quantities of bio-fertilizer. There is a remarkable tendency among officials in the agricultural sector to think that they cannot do farming without chemical fertilizer, but they are misguided. Farming can be done properly with less chemical fertilizer if the soil contains lots of organic matters. The world's agricultural development is tending towards farming with bio-fertilizer, not chemical fertilizer.

It is necessary to apply large quantities of manure to paddy and non-paddy fields to fertilize land and increase unit-area yield sustainably. Manure production is just increased grain production. The agricultural sector should channel efforts into manure production to turn out more than 20-30 tons of it per hectare of paddy and non-paddy fields. Cooperative farms should find out and use all sources of manure such as domestic animal excrement, night soil, compost and ditch-bed soil.

Hukposan fertilizer, which the great Comrade Kim Il Sung named in the meaning of a tonic for soil, and organic compound fertilizer are highly efficient organic fertilizers. The agricultural sector should direct much effort to the production of hukposan fertilizer and build up production bases for organic compound fertilizer and increase its production.

It is needed to firmly establish the food production cycle of agriculture and animal husbandry. The establishment of the production cycle is advantageous as it makes it possible to increase the production of livestock products and grain output by producing quality manure with the excrement of domestic animals. Cooperative farms should consistently adhere to the Party's policy of establishing the production cycle and thoroughly implement it to reenergize animal husbandry and boost grain production.

It is necessary to develop agricultural science and technology.

The agricultural science research sector should concentrate its efforts on successfully solving the scientific and technological problems arising in carrying out the Party's agricultural policies including the problems of seed, farming techniques and development of new farming machinery. Scientists and technicians in the agricultural sector, with the patriotic mind to bring about a bumper crop with substantial scientific and technological successes, should take up urgent problems arising in agricultural production as core themes and carry through research purposefully and persistently.

It is important to apply in time the achievements made in agricultural science and technology. The agricultural sector should remove the tendency to insist on old experience and make light of science and technology, and positively introduce scientific and technological successes into agricultural production.

To increase agricultural production, it is necessary to protect land under cultivation and expand the grain cultivation area.

Land is the main means of agricultural production and a precious asset of the country to be handed down generation after generation. The rural economy sector should put great efforts into land protection so as not to lose areas under cultivation. It should undertake tree planting, river improvement and structure repair and maintenance efficiently and on a regular basis in order to prevent crop land from being inundated and washed away by flood in the rainy season, and push ahead with the building of terraces with grass-covered slopes in sloping crop land in a planned way to protect it from natural damage. Along with this, it should make proactive efforts to restore arable land washed away by flood to its original state and retrieve the lost area of land according to the cadastral map. In particular, the practice of misusing and wasting land should be stamped out. Strict discipline and order should be maintained to prevent such illegal practices as recklessly violating crop la

nd and misusing it for other purposes, and administrative and legal control of such practices should be tightened. Steady efforts should be put into tideland reclamation to bring new land under plough, and various possible methods employed to increase the area of land under cultivation.

Agroforestry is a good way to increase grain production by making an effective use of forest land. General Kim Jong Il said that all the mountains should be turned into "mountains of gold," into "mountains of treasure," where we can get materials for producing food and clothes. Cities and counties should properly set the sites for agroforestry to undertake it on a large scale so as to increase grain production and step up the reforestation of mountains.

The agricultural sector should improve the structure of agricultural production to be a grain-oriented one in order to boost food production to the maximum. As it is the most urgent need for us to solve the food problem, we should reduce the area of cultivation of non-cereal crops as much as possible and expand the area of rice and maize cultivation. The Cabinet should make an overall survey of the utilization of land under cultivation by units outside the Ministry of Agriculture and assign each of them a grain production quota and see to it that it carries it out without fail.

The agricultural sector should launch a vigorous drive for doing farming by its own efforts.

The masters of agricultural production are the officials and working people in the agricultural sector themselves. Doing farming by their own efforts is a duty devolving upon them. Although it is not easy for cooperative farms to do farming by their own efforts in the present conditions, it is by no means something that is impossible. The several exemplary cooperative farms associated with the leadership exploits of the President and the General are overfulfilling their grain production plans and increasing the income shares of their farmers by themselves by inspiring their self-consciousness and enthusiasm and organizing all farming operations in a scrupulous manner. All other cooperative farms should emulate them and launch a brisk drive to do farming by their own efforts.

Subworkteam is the grass-roots unit in the countryside which occupies an important position in the development of the rural economy and agricultural production.

Only when subworkteams enhance their role is it possible to develop the socialist rural economy and bring about innovations in agricultural production.

The advantages of the subworkteam management system should be given full rein.

The subworkteam management system created by the President is an excellent form of production organization and a superior method of management, in that it encourages farmers to take part in production and management as befitting masters with the feeling of attachment to the collective economy. Its advantages have clearly been proved through practice.

By operating the system efficiently as required by the developing reality, the agricultural sector should bring the sense of responsibility and creative zeal of farmers into full play. It should give farmers clear-cut tasks related with soil management, farming operations and production plan and review their results in time and in a substantial way, thus encouraging them all to work in a responsible manner with consciousness and high enthusiasm as befitting masters. Recently a measure has been taken to introduce a field-responsibility-system within the framework of the subworkteam management system so as to inspire farmers with enthusiasm for production. By applying the system correctly in conformity with their actual conditions, cooperative farms should make it prove effective in agricultural production.

What is important in operating the subworkteam management system is to strictly abide by the socialist principle of distribution. Equalitarianism in distribution has nothing to do with the socialist principle of distribution and has a harmful effect of diminishing farmers' enthusiasm for production. Subworkteams should assess the daily work-points of their members accurately and in good time according to the quantity and quality of the work they have done. And they should, as required by the socialist principle of distribution, share out their grain yields to their members mainly in kind according to their work-points after counting out the amounts set by the state. The state should define reasonable amounts of grains for compulsory delivery on the basis of accurate calculation of the country's demand for grains, interests of farmers and their demands for living, thereby ensuring that they make redoubled efforts with confidence.

Subworkteam leaders should enhance their sense of responsibility and role.

They are the rural hardcore on whom our Party relies in solidifying its socialist rural position and primary leading members in the rural communities who organize and execute the farming and management of subworkteams. How they perform their duties decides whether the Party’s agricultural policies are implemented or not and whether the advantages and vitality of the subworkteam management system are displayed or not.

All subworkteam leaders should be fully aware of the Party's intention of convening the conference of subworkteam leaders in the agricultural sector as this year's first conference and responsibly carry out their duties with credit.

First, subworkteam leaders should become active defenders, propagators and implementers of our Party’s agricultural policies and Juche farming method.

They should regard the Party's agricultural policies and Juche farming method as an absolutely right guide to action and their unshakeable faith and staunchly defend them in any circumstances and under any conditions. They should be better-versed in them than anyone else and actively explain and propagate them to farmers. They should ensure that all farm work is done in conformity with their requirements, and regard production plans assigned to their subworkteams as a battle order given by the state and carry them out without fail.

Second, subworkteam leaders should become genuine masters of their subworkteams and skilful commanders who conduct farming and management of their subworkteams responsibly and creatively.

By working out a foresighted plan of every farming operation in keeping with the actual conditions of their subworkteams and distributing labour and organizing farm work scrupulously, they should ensure that all types of farm work are carried out qualitatively and in good time. They should be determined to make themselves a foundation for a rich harvest and take the lead in performing difficult and backbreaking farm work, getting up earlier and sleeping less than others. They should always rack their brains to increase production and manage their subworkteams better. They should do away with subjectivism and arbitrariness and enlist the collective wisdom and creative initiative of their subworkteam members, thus continuously improving the management of their subworkteams.

Third, subworkteam leaders should become truly solid farmers of the new century who are well-versed in all types of farm work and possessed of modern agricultural scientific and technological knowledge.

They should be versatile in farm work, possessed of modern agricultural scientific and technological knowledge and prepared to operate various kinds of farming machinery skilfully. They should be sensitive to the new, strong in enterprising spirit and bold in introducing advanced farming techniques and methods and good experiences.

Fourth, subworkteam leaders should become dutiful "caretakers" of public property of their farms.

They, in cooperation with their subworkteam members, should value and take good care of land, farming machinery, draught cattle and farming implements as they would do their own property and their own flesh. They should ensure that all their subworkteam members take part in production and management with a high degree of self-consciousness of being masters of the collective economy and keep them from treating farm property and agricultural produce carelessly and wasting them.

Fifth, subworkteam leaders should become "elder brothers" or "elder sisters" of their subworkteam members who love and look after them as they would do their own blood relations.

They should be equally kind to all their subworkteam members who are different with one another in disposition, habit and level, work with them well and thus make all of them members of the great socialist family. They should care for them with all sincerity, be concerned about their living before their own and take responsible care of their living. They should always treat their subworkteam members politely and live harmoniously and optimistically together with them, sharing joy and sorrow with them. In this way they can be called "our subworkteam leader" by them.

Our Party has great trust in and expectations of subworkteam leaders. By performing their duties with a clear knowledge of them, they should become pacesetters and standard-bearers in the countryside who raise fierce flames of innovations in agricultural production.

State support to the countryside should be stepped up.

To render support to the countryside is one of the basic principles for socialist rural construction specified in the rural theses. Without giving state support to the countryside it is impossible to put agriculture on a scientific and modern footing and to achieve steady growth of agricultural production.

The state should scale up investment in the agricultural sector and ensure better supply of materials for it. What is important in state support to the countryside is to ensure timely supply of fertilizer for agricultural production. Fertilizer is precisely rice. Electricity and coal should be supplied sufficiently to the Namhung Youth Chemical Complex and Hungnam Fertilizer Complex, the arsenals for the socialist agricultural front, so as to make them normalize production of fertilizer on a high level. In addition to nitrogenous fertilizer, they should produce and supply phosphatic, potassic, silicon and various kinds of microelement fertilizers. It is necessary to provide the rural communities with large numbers of modern farming machinery, including tractors, and ensure enough supply of electricity, fuel, PVC sheeting, agrochemicals and other requisites opportunely for farming processes.

It is also important to give manpower support to the countryside. As mechanization of agriculture is yet to be up to standard, people across the country should turn out to help the farmers in their work. Manpower support for the countryside should be organized rationally as appropriate to the actual conditions of each region and cooperative farm, and volunteers should be encouraged to work with meticulous care from the standpoint that they share responsibility for farming with farmers. Along with increasing support to the countryside, it is necessary to keep the work force and farming equipment available at cooperative farms from being diverted to other projects that have nothing to do with farming.

It is essential to enhance the role of the Cabinet and the agricultural guidance organs.

Whether or not a radical turn is effected in agricultural production by concentrating all effort on farming depends largely on the role of the Cabinet and the agricultural guidance organs.

True to the Party's intention of attaching importance to the agricultural front in the building of a thriving nation, the Cabinet should carefully arrange, organize and command economic activities on the principle of concentrating efforts on agriculture and give timely solutions to the problems arising in agricultural production. The Cabinet officials, making a plea of the difficult economic situation in the country, should not simply send down plans for supplies to the agricultural sector and remain desk-bound in their offices pressing their subordinates to execute the plans quickly. Instead, they should go down to the production sites, identify bottlenecks and take proactive steps to resolve them.

The agricultural guidance organs should command farming operations in a manner responsible for the agricultural front. It is of decisive importance to root out subjectivism, bureaucratism and formalism which are deep-seated in the guidance over farming operations. The agricultural guidance organs should hold technical guidance as the main thing in directing farming operations, popularize advanced farming techniques and methods, and make exact demand on cooperative farms and give substantial help to them so that they do all types of farm work in a scientific and technological way.

Party guidance to the agricultural sector should be intensified.

Party organizations should orient their work towards championing and glorifying the immortal achievements the President and the General made for the country's agricultural development and implementing the agricultural policies put forward by the Party.

They should conduct effective political work aimed at giving free rein to the spiritual strength of the officials and working people in the agricultural sector.

The key to increased agricultural production lies in giving full play to the spiritual strength of the officials and working people in the agricultural sector. Party organizations should see to it that they cherish and apply Kim Jong Il's patriotism in practice and learn from the heroic spirit of the farmers of the older generation who strove to produce food grains in the flames of the fierce war. They should move the theatre of their political work to the farm fields and, through intensive motivational work, inspire the farmers there with zeal and vigour and make all farm fields seethe with the struggle for increased grain production.

Model units should be created in the countryside, and all other units should launch an emulation campaign to overtake them. To create a model unit and make it a spark to raise flames across other units is a traditional method of work of our Party. Party organizations should create model units by motivating the relevant units to develop into such on their own, not by giving help to them, and encourage all other units to compete with one another to surpass them. Even in a cooperative farm a model workteam and a model subworkteam should be created, and other workteams and subworkteams should be encouraged to join in the campaign to outdo the leading ones.

The position and role of county Party committees are very important in solving the food problem by carrying out the Party's agricultural policies to the letter. The most important duty of a county Party committee is to push the county under its charge for good farming. It should actively encourage the officials of the county cooperative farm management committee and other administrative and economic organs to make effective arrangement and guidance for innovative successes in farming with a high sense of responsibility, and correct any deviation before it is too late. It should give effective Party guidance to all its subordinate organizations in the rural areas so as to ensure that they unfailingly fulfil their agricultural production plans by bending their every effort on farm work.

It is important to build up the ranks of subworkteam leaders. Party organizations should form the ranks with those who are loyal to the Party, ardently patriotic, versed in technology and competent enough, and help and lead them so that they live up to the Party's and the people's great expectations with increased grain production.

I am in firm belief that all the officials and working people in the agricultural sector, full of confidence in victory, would bring about a fresh turn in agricultural production under the unfurled banner of the socialist rural theses.