U.N. says N. Korea faces 836,000 ton food shortfall

By Shim Sun-ah

SEOUL, Dec. 8 (Yonhap) -- Millions of North Koreans will urgently need food aid in the coming months because of expected low crop yields this year, the World Food Program (WFP) said in a report released Monday.

The report estimated the North's total agricultural production at 4.21 million
tons for the 2008-2009 marketing year, leaving the impoverished country facing a
cereal deficit of 836,000 tons, even with commercial imports.
Around 40 percent of the country's population, or an estimated 8.7 million people
-- mostly children, pregnant and nursing women and the elderly -- will urgently
need food assistance in the coming months as a result, the WFP said after about
two weeks of a food supply survey conducted in North Korea jointly by the Food
and Agricultural organization (FAO).
Agricultural production is more than 3 million tons higher than the previous
marketing year, when the North suffered massive flooding -- but it still shows a
downward trend compared to the record harvest of 4.5 million tons in 2005.
"The DPRK will face a severe food situation over the coming months," said Henri
Josserand, chief of the FAO Global Information and Early Warning System. "Despite
good weather and hard work by farmers and many city dwellers, they could not
overcome critical shortages of fertilizer and fuel," he said. DPRK is the
abbreviation for North Korea's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of
Korea.
"The prospects for next year are bleak, with a substantial deficit of basic foods
that will only partly be covered by commercial imports and anticipated food aid."
Torben Due, the WFP's Pyongyang office chief, said in a statement that the
findings confirmed his organization's fears that millions of North Koreans will
suffer another year of food shortages.
"With such a large food gap, accessing enough food and a balanced diet will be
almost impossible, particularly for families living in urban areas or in the
remote food-deficit provinces in the Northeast. This could have grave
consequences for the health of the most vulnerable groups," he said.
The report is crucial for South Korea, as it has said it will decide how to
respond to the WFP's latest appeal for food aid to North Korea mainly based on
the outcome of the survey.
North Korea has faced years of chronic food shortages and was hit by a severe
famine in the mid-1990s that left some 2 million people -- or about one-tenth of
the country's population -- dead, according to U.S. and other intelligence.
Once-generous international aid for the North has become sparse as the hard-line
communist country has been dragging its feet on nuclear disarmament in
negotiations with South Korea, the U.S. and other regional powers.
The WFP, in its appeal made in early September, asked South Korea to contribute
up to US$60 million for its campaign in North Korea, warning the country will
slip back into famine unless it is given aid worth about $500 million in the next
15 months.
South Korea has yet to respond to the appeal as its relations with Pyongyang have
been strained since President Lee Myung-bak's conservative government was
launched in February.
North Korea did not request annual humanitarian aid shipments this year from
South Korea, consisting of about 400,000 tons of rice and 300,000 tons of
fertilizer, amid the strained ties. Lee's two liberal predecessors had provided
the humanitarian aid for a decade.