North Korea Running Out of Food

North Korea to Run Out of Food in June

April 27, 2011

AFP - Parts of North Korea are expected to run out of food in less than two months due to a poor harvest even if foreign donors agree to provide assistance, a US relief group said Wednesday.

The United States and South Korea have been cautious over reports of dire food shortages in the North, with some officials suspecting that the communist state is exaggerating the problem to win assistance.

But Samaritan's Purse, one of five US groups that visited North Korea in February, said that a harsh winter has reduced crop yield by up to half and that some people were already eating grass, leaves and tree bark.

"We believe that, in many of the areas that we visited, in mid-June they're going to run out of food," said Ken Isaacs, the Christian-oriented group's vice president for programs and government relations.

"We are certain, based on our field surveys, that there is an urgent need and that if it's not met, people will suffer and people will die this year," he told a seminar at the American Enterprise Institute think-tank.

Isaacs said that the relief groups want to provide 160,000 to 175,000 tons of food to North Korea -- about half of what the regime requested -- but that it would be impossible to arrange shipments in time to meet the shortfall.

"If a green light was given today, that food probably isn't going to be into North Korea for about three months," Isaacs said.

Hundreds of thousands of North Koreans died in a famine in the 1990s. But North Korea, which prides itself on its "juche" philosophy of self-reliance, abruptly kicked out the US aid groups in 2009. His warning came as former US president Jimmy Carter, a proponent of engagement with North Korea, led a delegation of elder statesmen to Pyongyang for talks on issues including food aid.

But US President Barack Obama's administration has held off on deciding whether to provide food assistance, with officials saying they want more evidence of an urgent need before committing to assistance.

Several lawmakers from the rival Republican Party have urged Obama not to authorize aid, fearing that North Korea wants the food for its elite or to stock up for next year's celebrations marking the 100th birth anniversary of the regime's founder Kim Il-Sung.

Robert King, the US special envoy on human rights, told the same forum that the Obama administration was still debating whether to send food to North Korea and wanted a way to monitor that it would go to people in need. He said the United States would make its decision based on North Korea's needs, not on politics. But he pointed out that a number of nations -- some with better track records -- were competing for a share of tight aid budgets.

"The needs for humanitarian assistance have to be balanced with the need and demand for our assistance in other parts of the world as well," King said.

North Korea has also asked other countries for help. But South Korea, which for a decade maintained a flow of aid to its estranged neighbor, toughened its stance when conservative President Lee Myung-Bak took office in 2008. Unification Minister Hyun In-Taek, who handles cross-border affairs, said Monday that the North's food shortage was not particularly worse this year and there appeared to be some political motivation for its pleas for aid.

The Obama administration has followed a policy of "strategic patience" with North Korea, saying that it will wait for it to make clear commitments on key concerns including on ending its nuclear program.

The US administration has indicated that it will wait for its South Korean allies to decide when the time is right for dialogue. Tensions soared last year after North Korea shelled a civilian island and was accused of sinking a warship.

North Korean Food Need is Urgent, U.N. Says

March 25, 2011

Associated Press - The United Nations reported Thursday that more than six million North Koreans, about a quarter of the communist state's population, were in urgent need of international food aid.

The findings, the result of a needs assessment conducted in February and March, will add to pressure for the United States to resume food aid to North Korea suspended in 2009 after its monitors were expelled. But doing so could be seen as aiding a government that has since advanced its nuclear-weapons programs and is accused of twice attacking U.S. ally South Korea.

In its report, the result of an assessment conducted in February and March, the United Nations said that North Korea had suffered a series of shocks including summer floods and then a harsh winter, "leaving the country highly vulnerable to a food crisis." It said the worst affected included children, women, and the elderly, and recommended providing 475,000 tons of food aid.

North Korea's public distribution system will run out of food at the beginning of the "lean season," which runs between May and July, between spring and fall harvests. This would "substantially increase the risk of malnutrition and other diseases," the report said.

Three U.N. agencies -- the World Food Program, the Food and Agriculture Organization, and UNICEF -- conducted the assessment at North Korea's request. They visited 40 counties in nine of the country's 11 provinces.

Five nongovernment U.S. aid agencies that visited the North last month reported severe food shortages and alarming malnutrition among children. The United Nations said the current nutrition situation appeared to be "relatively stable" but was liable to deteriorate in the "lean season."

"Children who are now mild to moderately malnourished can rapidly become severely malnourished and decrease their chance of survival or full development," the report said.

U.S. officials said Thursday it was still considering whether to resume food aid to the North, which has had chronic problems in feeding its people since its assistance from the former Soviet Union ended.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry (D., Mass.) said Thursday that the results of the U.N. assessment were "dire" and called for resumption of aid if it could be properly monitored.

North Korea's Pleas for Food Aid Draw Suspicion

April 12, 2011

NPR - The United Nations is warning that 6 million North Koreans — a quarter of the population — could be at risk of starvation. It's warning of a likely humanitarian crisis, with North Korea's public distribution system set to run out of food in May.

North Korean food shortages are no longer news, but this year Pyongyang has made unusually public pleas for food aid, raising fears as well as suspicions.

In North Korea, from May until July is called the "lean season." This year they're already using other Orwellian euphemisms, too, like "alternative food."

"They take wild grasses or straw and twigs, and they cut it up real fine, and mix it with their ground-up corn, which is a staple of their diet," says David Austin, of the nongovernmental organization Mercy Corps.

In mid-February, as part of a seven-person team, Austin was invited by North Korea to spend a week there assessing whether food aid is needed. He believes it is.

"I would say they're dying of hunger-related causes. A child who ingests this alternative food who's 3 years old, her stomach can't absorb that. We saw a little girl who was 3 1/2. She weighed about 15 or 16 pounds, and she was completely unresponsive during our visit. That child probably won't make it."

The U.N. has also found that health indicators are worsening. In some parts of the country, up to half the children have acute malnutrition or stunted growth. And worse could be to come: Austin's team estimates that 50 percent to 80 percent of the wheat and barley harvest has died because of a bitterly cold winter.

Rising food prices mean North Korea has scaled back plans to buy food on the world market. It had wanted to buy 325,000 tons. So far, it has only bought 40,000, according to Ken Isaacs of Samaritan's Purse, who was also part of the NGO assessment mission.

"With the loss of the winter harvest and the limit of food in the storehouses, our expectation is you're going to see a significant impact from about the middle of March through July," he says. "That's when the stocks will run out."

Fewer Food Rations

Exhibit A is a video shot by a citizen journalist working for Rimjin-gang, which styles itself as North Korea's first ever underground magazine. It includes an interview with an emaciated girl covered in filth, picking grass. When asked "What do you eat?" she replies "Nothing." It was shot in June. Rimjin-gang reports that her body was found in October.

The regime usually distributes food on special occasions, like the birthday of leader Kim Jong Il, which was marked last month with a synchronized swimming performance and an ice dancing show. But this year there was no cause for celebration for the masses: The special food rations were scaled back, and in some cases not distributed at all.

Tae-keung Ha from Open Radio for North Korea, which has sources inside the country, says there is food for sale in the markets, but people can't afford it. This suspicion is also bolstered by an assessment by the World Food Program and the Food and Agriculture Organization in November, which found that North Korea's food output had grown by 3 percent last year compared with a year before.

"The price of rice has inflated about 100 times compared to one year ago," says Tae-keung Ha.

He blames economic mismanagement for hyperinflation, following botched currency reforms in 2009.

"The main reason is [that] the value of North Korean currency is plummeting down because [the] North Korean government is just printing more and more North Korean currency."

A 'Strong And Prosperous Nation'

This year, multiple reports say even the favored military is going hungry, as the public distribution system that kept them fed has largely broken down. This comes at a time when North Korea has requested food aid from overseas, even from poorer African countries. This has led some to fear that food could be stockpiled.

"Maybe almost all the food from the rest of the world to North Korea could be used for the military," says Tae-keung Ha.

He points out that the leadership has vowed that North Korea will be a "strong and prosperous nation" by 2012.

"So for the next year, they should give some food to their people. So that's another reason why they need [to] save rice for the next year."

The NGO team wants a targeted feeding program for the most vulnerable members of society. They say such a mission should be strictly monitored to avoid abuse. U.S. officials say they're considering whether to resume food aid. This is politically sensitive following Pyongyang's deadly attacks on a South Korean island late last year.

But Austin says there are humanitarian and political imperatives to act.

"All of the food that comes in when donated from U.S. arrives in a bag with a U.S. flag on it," he says. "In Korean, and English, it says a free gift from the American people. The 900,000 people we were feeding in 2008 to 2009, every two weeks they would go to the distribution center, and they'd see that flag and see that statement and they'd get their food."

The recent U.N. assessment found only 4 percent of households were eating properly. It fears the public food distribution system — on which many depend — will run out of food in May. The U.N. programs in North Korea are severely underfunded, and fears are growing that time is running out to organize an appeal.

Hard choices lie ahead: Food aid could help the survival of the regime, but withholding it will cost lives.