By Cat Holmes
University of Georgia
ATHENS, Ga. — After a three-day
forum on North Korean and U.S. nuclear challenges, North Korean
policy framers met with University of Georgia scientists and
officials on lighter topic: jump-starting a cooperative
agricultural project that’s been stalled for two years.
The project began in 1999 with reciprocal visits between
scientists at the Academy of Agricultural Sciences in North
Korea
and the UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental
Sciences.
Through those visits, scientists from each country assessed
areas
of mutual interest and settled on three: poultry, biotechnology
and sweet potatoes.
Project on hold
However, events in both countries, including Sept. 11, moved the
project to a back burner.
“Since June 2001 when the delegation last visited, we have not
had an exchange,” said Stanley Kays, a UGA horticulturist
specializing in sweet potatoes. “We are eager to move the
process
along. Our college would like to see an exchange of ideas and
technologies.”
The North Koreans included Jo Sung Ju, Kim Myong Gil and Sim Il
Gang of the Korean Institute of Disarmament and Peace; Han
Song-Ryol, North Korean ambassador to the United Nations; and
Sin
Song Chol of the U.N. mission. They are policy makers, not
scientists. But they agreed to discuss the project, which
everyone agreed was a much easier subject than nuclear arms.
Simple goal
“In agriculture, we are idealists,” said UGA poultry scientist
Nick Dale, who has participated in the project since the
beginning. “All we have to do is feed people. It’s not
controversial.”
The North Korean delegates sampled a sweet potato variety Kays
developed that tastes like white potatoes but has the higher
yields and nutrients of sweet potatoes. They then toured the UGA
Center for Applied Genetic Technologies, a state-of-the-art
facility that brings together diverse expertise and resources in
plant and animal genomics.
During an informal discussion that followed, Ed Kanemasu,
director of the UGA office of international agriculture,
proposed
to get the joint project moving again by inviting several North
Korean scientists to come to UGA.
New start
“We have the funds to invite several agricultural scientists to
come here long enough to gain actual experience in technologies
of interest to them,” he said.
The North Korean delegation was receptive.
“I have a message from Pyongyang,” ambassador Han said. “We want
to advance the exchange of technology (in agriculture) and
enhance our productivity. Georgia is known in DPRK (Democratic
People’s Republic of Korea) for agriculture. We can set up a
relatively short project in the short term and then expand to a
larger joint research project.”
Han Park, director of the UGA Center for Global Issues,
organized
the North Koreans’ visit this week. He has participated in the
joint agricultural project from the beginning. Park encouraged
both sides to take action to get the project moving again.
“I would like to remind us of a Korean saying,” he said.
“‘Starting is halfway done.’”
After the discussions were complete, Kanemasu said both
Ambassador Han and Park felt the talk went very well. “Dr. Park
felt that the stalemate has been broken,” he said, “and that we
should be able to move forward.”
(Cat Holmes is a news editor with the University of Georgia
College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.)
