Kim Jong Un Visits North Korea's Newly Opened Posong Mushroom Farm [PHOTOS]

Kim Jong Un’s interest in the NBA and the sport of basketball in general have been well documented in the media. Perhaps less known is his growing interest in mushrooms. Yesterday, with a posse of top military officers in tow, Kim made a visit to the newly built Posong mushroom farm.

While North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un has been making tours around the country with top officials, checking on the training of the country’s naval forces, he made a stop at a mushroom farming facility to learn about mushroom harvesting. According to state-run Korean Central News Agency, Kim was providing field guidance at the mushroom farm, and “going round [sic] various places of the farm, he acquainted himself in detail with fungus production.”

Kim was briefed on the various methods and conditions in order for successful mushroom farming to occur. After touring the facility, Kim announced plans to implement the mushroom technology on an industrial level in hopes of achieving mass-production to provide for citizens in other areas. “He called on the farm to mass-produce fungi to send them to mushroom farms to be built in the future and compile good technical guides for cultivating mushrooms in an industrial method for various units,” the official report said.

According to Chinese news outlet Sina, Kim expressed passion for the mushroom project, because the late President Kim Il Sung, known as the father of the North Korean regime, had hopes of turning the famine-plagued nation into a world-famous mushroom producer by building such farms around the country. Though the North is mostly recognized globally for other reasons, perhaps the opening of the Posong facility will be just the beginning of North Korea’s lucrative mushroom industry.