People really forget South Korea under Park Chunghee literally sent soldiers to Vietnam and got shit ton of money/deals for the conglomerates from US.
sounds good for them but i wonder where russia would get all that rice considering 700 tons is literally their entire annual production
According to the USDA, Russia produced 1,185,000 tons of rice in 2024-2025.
On other words, if this bullshit is true, Russia has promised the DPRK 70% of its annual rice production. Very reasonable /s.
that gave me a bit of whiplash cause i used the same source; i'm not sure what the difference between 'milled' and 'rough' production is and which a food-aid or food-trade deal would involve. technically 70 tons of milled would be leftover from the figure i used but 'literally' is a word that can contain <10% inaccuracy
The source lists yield in thousand tons. I think you forgot to tack on those three extra zeros.
Raw rice grains are made up of a white grain surrounded by a bran and inedible husk. Rice is milled to remove the husk to make brown rice. It can be milled more to remove the bran to make white rice. Obviously, this process will cause the rice grains to lose ~30% weight, reducing the milled yield weight from the raw yield weight.
I think your choice of 700,000 tons for Russia's total edible yield makes more sense. If Russia gave the DPRK raw rice, the DPRK would have to mill it all anyways.
Either way, this supposed deal is very silly. Russia barely grows any rice, and this list says the DPRK actually grows more rice than Russia.
Perhaps the propagandist misspelled wheat as rice?
They could possibly resell some from China and India, assuming these numbers are correct of course.
Never forget that quisling Korea sent upwards of 300,000 troops to Vietnam. Pure projection right here
I don't think there is any magnitude of assistance DPRK could provide to Russia that would justify this price.
Indeed, however I would expect that Russia would want to restore relations to the levels they were at during the Soviet times. DPRK was a major industrial hub for USSR, and given that Russian economy is now running hot, they will likely be interested in leveraging the industrial base in DPRK and the skilled workforce.
North Korea has been stockpiling munitions since the 1950s.
Ammo does not have a infinite shelf life tho. Artilery grenades can be stored for two to three decades at the most.
