North Korea greenhouse functioning at less than half capacity | Radio Free Asia (RFA)

Heat maps show largest greenhouse farm in North Korea at less than half capacity.

The farm was said to be the area’s rebound from severe flooding, but it’s not fully operational, analysts tell RFA.

According to state media, the country’s leader Kim Jong Un personally guided the construction of the Sinuiju Greenhouse Farm Complex. It has been touted as a way to rejuvenate Wihwa, Mado and Kumdong islands in the Yalu River, near the border with China, which were leveled by flooding in 2024.

At the farm complex’ dedication in February, Kim acknowledged the floods as being the heaviest on record, but said the project overcame nature to create “from which our people will benefit for all ages.”

But thermal infrared imagery from NASA’s Landsat-8 satellite suggests that only 44% of the total complex was registering temperatures above the surrounding average, Bruce Songhak Chung, a researcher at the Seoul-based Institute for National Security Strategy, told RFA.

He told Radio Free Asia that after seeing the thermal data from March 10 that the unheated areas were evidence that either heating infrastructure has not been fully installed or that chronic electricity shortages are preventing the greenhouses from operating at full capacity.

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