You know a country is in bad shape when human feces becomes a commodity – on that is “readily available” no less. North Korea is presently facing a fertilizer shortage on account of the sanctions in place against the regime – and so they are making do with what they have; good ol’ fashioned hu-manure.
Human excrement makes a good fertilizer, using it as such is a good way to replenish the nutrient cycle – there is no shame in that. Where things get embarrassing for an authoritarian regime is when ‘human manure’ shops start springing up at marketplaces, which is what is believed to be happening as you read this.
Granted, this could all be South Korean propaganda, but considering that they lost more than half-a-million people (estimated) to a famine in the early 1990s, it doesn’t seem implausible to this author. Selling your people’s crap back to them is better than letting them die – but you know what is better still? Not bombarding civilian populations on disputed borders with artillery… that and abandoning nuclear ambitions, both steps that are easily within reach of Dear Leader. [ABC Australia]
