A province in the Republic of Korea (ROK) Wednesday suggested building an unprecedented joint-venture farm in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) to help ease the DPRK's food shortages. 

If built, the farm would mark the first of its kind in the DPRK, where state-run collective farms produce mainly food.

The ROK's Gyeonggi Province, which surrounds Seoul, proposed to build a 98-hectare experimental rice farm in Hwanghae Province, south of Pyongyang. Hwanghae has some of the DPRK's most fertile farm fields.

Gyeonggi can provide fertilizer and farming implements and technology, while Hwanghae can supply cheap labor, said Gyeonggi Governor Sohn Hak-kyu.

Sohn estimated it would take five years to build the farm at a cost of US$2.4 million.

The ROK and the DPRK have launched a few joint economic projects since their historic summit in 2000, including an industrial park in the DPRK town of Kaesong.

In an unrelated development, the United States reiterated on Tuesday its call for the DPRK to return to the six-party talks.

"We hope that they (the DPRK) are serious and that they will come back to the six-party talks soon so that we can talk in a substantive way about how to move forward."

"That is what we believe is important. That is what the other nations in the region believe is important, to move towards a nuclear-free peninsula," White House spokesman Scott McClellan told a news briefing.

The DPRK said on January 14 that it would opt for finding a final solution to all outstanding issues, including the resumption of six-party talks, if the United States drops its hostility towards Pyongyang.

(China Daily January 27, 2005)