Seeds of reform show deep in North Korea DEEP in the North Korean countryside, in remote villages that outsiders seldom reach, farmers are now said to be getting nearly a third of their harvests to sell at market prices. Collective farms are reportedly being reorganised into something closer to family farms. State propagandists are expounding the glories of change under the country's new young leader. A string of long-doubtful observers have become increasingly convinced that economic change is afoot, akin to China's first flirtations with market reforms 30 years ago. No outsiders are known to have been to the villages, in Ryanggang province, since the new policies reportedly went into effect. No outsiders have seen the details of the 28 June government order - "On the Establishing of a New Economic Management System in Our Own Style" - that supposedly launched the programme. Other reported reforms, from shifts in investment laws to new industrial profit-sharing regulations, are even more opaque. Still, there are signs that the world's most closed-off society may be toying with change, from a campaign to soften the image of the country's young leader, Kim Jong-un, to the apparent purging of a hardline general. North Korea has flirted with radical economic shifts before. The 17-year rule of Kim Jong-il -whose December death paved the way for his son to take power - included a devastating currency devaluation in 2009 that stripped millions of people of their savings. Nearly all the changes were rolled back amid fears that they could lead to demands for change that could spiral beyond the state's control. If the latest reform reports are true, they would almost certainly be driven in part by China. Beijing has long pressed Pyongyang to enact reforms similar to its own first steps toward a market economy. For years, "the Chinese have been touting their system and their accomplishments, and the North Koreans have been politely nodding their heads and effectively doing nothing," said Evans Revere, a former US diplomat. When the reports began leaking out in recent weeks about the agricultural reforms, a government official told the state news agency KCNA that expecting reform "is nothing but a foolish and silly dream," but added that North Korea "is effecting new innovations and creations in order to make its people enjoy a modern and highly civilised life and live in luxury and comfort." Some of the contradiction may simply be semantics, with North Korea objecting to the word "reform" because it could look like a rejection of the policies of Kim Jong-un's father and grandfather, both of whom are officially near-deities. But the reported agricultural reforms, based on anonymous sources inside North Korea, are the clearest sign that significant economic change could be at hand. Though less than 20 per cent of the mountainous country is arable, nearly every patch of land that can be farmed is planted with rice, corn, potatoes, cabbage and more. Tractors and the fuel to operate them remain a luxury, so most work is done by hand and with the help of oxen. The reports say communal farmers in selected villages are now being given 30 per cent of their harvests to sell on the open market - tripling the amount they had earlier been allowed.