North Korea has asked all its citizens to come out into the rice fields to work on the ruling party's rice transplanting campaign, which it said was a "labour-consuming urgent one" needed to solve the 'food problem'.
Editorial articles in newspapers in the country, such as Rodong Sinmun, called on officials and people working in the agriculture sector, as well as others, to participate in the Kim Jong-un regime's rice transplanting campaign to increase grain production this year.
The regime blamed the 'imperialists', a term North Korea often uses with reference to the United States, for escalating economic sanctions to create food shortage in the country and "shake people's faith in socialism", North Korea's KCNA reported.
"The reality proves that the grain production is not merely a business matter for settling the food problem but the fiercest class struggle for defending the outpost of socialism. The rice transplanting campaign at present is a drive for implementing the party's idea and defending its policies," KCNA cited from Rodong Sinmun, the mouthpiece of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea.
"This campaign can prove successful only when not only officials and other working people in the agricultural field but all other people turn out in it as it is a labor-consuming urgent one."
Rice transplanting is a process of planting rice seeds into paddy fields.
North Korea, which faces severe economic sanctions, often reels under food shortages.
It had faced a devastating famine in the mid 90s, which killed lakhs of North Koreans.
