During the Soviet era, the individual farmers were permitted to use approximately 3% of the land of the collective farms for private farming. These relatively small plots, only 3% of the cultivated land in the USSR produced some 35% of the foodstuffs throughout the Soviet era. The private plots were scattered throughout the Soviet Union, attached to the big collective farms. Soviet agriculture was constantly plagued with bad weather: droughts, floods, heat, cold, etc. These natural disasters were the reason why Soviet agriculture never once met the needs of the Soviet population.

The funny thing about this was that the weather on the private plots was always perfect: They produced bumper crop after bumper crop. An entire collective farm often produced less than the 3% private plots around it. There would be droughts, floods, and all of the rest on the collective farm, while on the private plots the weather was always perfect. It was a miracle!

It is the same thing with North Korea versus South Korea: The Communist areas suffer bad weather year after year, while the Capitalist areas receive all of the good weather in the region and produce ample food for their own people with a surplus for export. Another miracle!

Clearly, this is not the fault of the North Korean government.