North Korea’s Food Situation: Bad but not Catastrophic

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North Korea’s Food Situation: Bad but not Catastrophic
    By: Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein   
    May 29, 2019Economy, Human Security   

North Korea’s food situation is confusing. The World Food Program (WFP) and the North Korean government have effectively conveyed the message to the world that major food shortages and, some say, perhaps even a famine, are at hand. Pyongyang as well as some experts blame United Nations sanctions. (Less fuel, for instance, means less fertilizer production, and makes it harder to run agricultural machinery.) The WFP has primarily blamed inclement weather for the lower harvests.

However, none of these explanations are satisfying. The WFP has sounded alarms many times before about looming shortages when no sanctions were in place. Bad weather alone is never a sufficient explanation. The WFP and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warn almost yearly of food shortfalls in North Korea, but these reports tend not to be followed up with corroborating evidence of increased difficulties.

What makes this year different from other years? Aside from the unusually urgent tone in WFP statements and projections, reports from grassroots outlets such as Daily NK corroborate what WFP and others are saying. There should be little doubt that North Korea’s food situation is bad, but it does not appear to be catastrophic. To better determine its severity, it is important to understand the limitations in the methods used to calculate the shortfalls. This article focuses on the following questions: how bad are the food production numbers in context? How should we understand the numbers given how food is distributed in North Korea? And what are some of the crucial things we don’t know about the situation?

Read more at: https://www.38north.org/2019/05/bkatzeffsilberstein052919/