Projects – Our Work
Agglobe Services International is a U.S.-based 501(c)(3) humanitarian aid organization working to improve global food security. Our focus has been on improving North Korean food security through humanitarian aid and sustainable development. Since the early 1990s, we have been collaborating with the residents of several North Korean cooperative farms by organizing humanitarian aid, agricultural rehabilitation and ecologically sustainable community development.
In 2003, Agglobe partnered with the North Korean Unpasan General Trading and Development Company to form a cooperative apparatus, Ryongyun Joint Venture, to oversee the agricultural development of four collective farms in North Korea. Agglobe develops agricultural rehabilitation programs and introduces sustainable farming practices to make these villages self-sustaining and financially viable. Profits from the production return directly to farm workers and the farm, rather than to Agglobe or the trading firm.
Our operations began in 2004 at four farms in North and South Hwanghae Province. Two farms are located at Bongsan County in Hwanghae Bukdo and two farms at Samchon County in Hwanghae Namdo. All four farms are each approximately 700 hectares (1,730 acres). Approximately 3,500 to 4,000 people live on each farm, of which 6,500 are farm workers and 5,300 children under 17 years old. Approximately 15,000 people live on the four cooperative farms, which cover a total of 3,000 hectares of arable land. The cooperative farms have steadily improved productivity, and the farmers and managers have gained a greater understanding of sustainable community development and profit.
In March 2006, Agglobe began the multi-year North Korean Food Security and Sustainable Community Development project to transform the four cooperative farms into ecologically sustainable farms (including organic) and improving the living standards and health of the cooperative farms community. Through a contract with the government, Agglobe has already been granted permission from the government to develop the Sustainable Community Development Program.
We will accomplish these objectives by achieving food security, promoting economic prosperity, and improving the cooperative members’ working and living conditions. We also recognize that for the farms to engage in the global economy, we need to introduce market economic principles and help them access alternative micro-financing loans to recalibrate their production. The project also aims to develop a model ecological farm at the Chonduk Cooperative Farm in Bongsan-Gun, North Hwanghae Province.
We seek to develop a sustainable farming community through achieving the following:
- Agricultural rehabilitation
- Medical assistance
- Supplying educational materials
- Children’s welfare
- Nutritional improvement
- Constructing family homes
- Introducing alternative energy (solar, wind power, waste fermentation technology)
- Repairing roads and bridges including conservation and reforestation
- Improvement of hygiene and overall living environment standards, (i.e. civil society concerns, as well as economic development).
Agglobe has managed to leverage expertise, financial and material support internationally by bringing foreigners to work with the farms to make them more ecologically and financially sustainable. For example, Superflex, a Danish environmental group will be working the North Korean farmers at the four cooperatives to establish a low-tech biogas system using organic materials such as dung and agricultural waste to produce energy (biogas) and fertilizer (slurry) through a process known as anaerobic digestion. These collaborative efforts with the international community not only helps struggling North Korean farmers survive, but also shows ways that the world—through NGOs and business ventures—how North Koreans are engaging with the global community.