North Korea is at risk of unprecedented food shortages, according to the regime. According to the state news agency KCNA, dictator Kim Jong-un has now called on his confidants to initiate a “fundamental transformation” of agricultural production. Meeting grain production targets this year is a top priority, he said. However, the agency report leaves it unclear exactly which measures North Korea intends to use to increase its agricultural yield.
The regime in North Korea largely seals off its population. How bad the supply situation in the country is is hardly apparent from the outside. At the beginning of February, however, the South Korean government also announced that the food situation in North Korea “appears to have deteriorated”.
million malnourished
Even before the corona crisis, around eleven million North Koreans were malnourished. North Korea had closed its borders because of the corona pandemic – as a result, trade with neighboring China, which is important for the country, has decreased significantly. In addition, the country is only marginally productive economically and is subject to international sanctions because of its nuclear and missile programs. Most recently, in the summer of 2021, the leadership in Pyongyang had to admit that there was a food crisis. The food situation was “tight,” Kim said at the time.
According to observers, collective farms make up the bulk of North Korea’s agriculture. The farms are home to several small farmers, a large yield is hardly possible.
Self-sufficiency in the country is also made difficult by hard soil and poor weather conditions. Typhoons, floods and massive rainfall make farming the land difficult.
“Like the 90’s”
The US assumes that North Korea might experience a famine as bad as in the 1990s. The government in Washington also warned that the availability of food had “probably fallen below the absolute minimum”.
