North Korea held a video conference to discuss better methods of flood control and water management in an effort to prevent the recurrence of heavy damage to the country's farming areas wrought by heavy rains last summer, state media reported Monday.

The conference on Sunday was joined by North Korean Premier Kim Tok-hun, Defense Minister Kim Jong-gwan and O Su-yong, who was recently elected director of the ruling party's Department of Economic Affairs, according to the Rodong Sinmun and the Korean Central News Agency.

The participants at the meeting blamed failures in controlling small and mid-sized streams and constructing or strengthening maritime facilities, such as tidal embankments, for the heavy damage caused by typhoons last summer, they said.

North Korea was hit hard by flooding prompted by back-to-back typhoons from July to September last year, which experts presumed to have devastated large swaths of farming areas.

A local think tank estimated that the North's rice production shrank 9.8 percent on-year in 2020.

A decline in grain harvests and the prolonged border closure due to the global pandemic have been cited as major downside risks for the North's chronic food shortage problem. (Yonhap)