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Food shortages in North Korea do not get much attention these days. But the problem is not the “cry wolf” syndrome. The problem is that shortages have become such a chronic feature of North Korea’s political economy that aid fatigue has set in with a vengeance. Yet all signs point to a mean winter and spring.
In an earlier post, we discussed rising food prices. This development reflects in part rising world prices, fallout from the provocation of the Yeongpyeong-do shelling, and renewed military procurements. But the aggregate supply picture also looks bad. The FAO crop assessment of November 2010 estimated production of all grains and grain equivalents at 5.3 million metric tonnes (MT) and commercial imports of another 325,000MT. But this still leaves the regime 540,000MT short. And that assumes a decent harvest, about which doubts are starting to surface. Even optimistic numbers would leave roughly 5 million individuals vulnerable, more than 20 percent of the entire population.
The chronic production problems are now playing out against some very unpleasant arithmetic in the country’s balance of payments. Prior to the inauguration of the LMB government, the DPRK worked a profitable triangular trade: substantial bilateral deficits with China were partly financed by surpluses with the South and generous foreign aid. With the sinking of the Cheonan, there is little North-South trade left except for what the country earns through the Kaesong Industrial Complex. Aid from the rest of the world has fallen to a trickle: Radio Free Asia, quoting an official of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, reported in December that international aid to the North in 2010 was about $20.6 million, less than half of the assistance it received in 2009.
More worrying are warning signs that policy actions are likely to compound the misery. Radio Free Asia reports that the Workers' Party has sent out a written order to work units urging them to “donate” foodstuffs to the military; in the past, such “donations” have proven little more than a euphemism for confiscations.
Do these signs point to the re-emergence of famine on the mid-1990s scale? No. Trade, aid, and household coping strategies have permitted North Koreans to survive these shocks. But it is a testament to our expectations that chronic shortages and accompanying malnutrition are the norm; even in Pyongyang, a 2009 survey found over 20% of children in the city were stunted.
The regime does not appear completely impervious to the problems it is facing, however. Engagement with the South through military-to-military talks is clearly aimed at the larger prize of securing economic assistance. And we are hearing credible rumors that the North has been seeking food assistance from a variety of sources, including the World Food Program and even the United States.
