Who is Dr. Pil-joo Kim
Dr.Kim Pil-joo is the general manager of Agglobe Services International, a development aid agency that provides humanitarian and agricultural aid to North Korea. She was born in North Korea in 1937 before the division of South and North Korea, she and her family moved to South Korea before the Korean War breaks out. Later, she grew up in South Korea and studied agriculture at Seoul National University. Back then, few women attended college, so she moved to the U.S. to finish her graduate studies. After finishing his doctorate at Seed Science College of Cornell University, she started working for the world's leading agricultural company in developing seed science and technology.
Dr. Kim has collaborated with major seed companies including Northrup King and Pioneer Hi-Bred International. And she also has visited North Korea more than 100 times so far and has distributed millions of dollars worth of agricultural knowledge, technology and goods to cooperative farms across the country.
She has secured one of her first contracts with the North Korean government to help identify export markets and generate income by working with dozens of cooperative farms to develop agricultural products and maintain close ties with four cooperative farms in South Hwanghae Province.