After a series of floods and typhoons decimated North Korea’s food supply, state media announced a new plan to breed swans for food to help alleviate the crisis.

“Black swan meat is delicious and has medicinal value,” said the official government newspaper Rodong Sinmun.

According to the newspaper, Ri Jong Nam, chief party secretary for South Hamgyong Province, opened a black swan breeding centre on 24th October on the country’s east coast.

“The solution is meant to address both the failure of large-scale farming to provide adequate food supplies to the whole country and more recent government COVID-19-related restrictions that have largely blocked food and other imports since early 2020,” wrote Colin Zwirko, senior analytic correspondent at NK News.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un declared that the nation was in the midst of a “tense” food crisis in June. In September, he urged North Koreans to come up with solutions to the “food problem.”

He also issued a rare apology last October for failing to guide the country through difficult conditions, made worst by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Our people have placed trust, as high as the sky and as deep as the sea, in me, but I have failed to always live up to it satisfactorily. I am sorry for that,” Kim said.