Food Shortfalls in DPRK could Beget an Imminent Humanitarian Disaster

November 11, 2021

Alexander Eid

Food insecurity in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK or North Korea) is worsening as the year progresses. 

After cutting off all imports due to COVID-19 and then weathering five typhoons in 2020 that resulted in damaged infrastructure and significant flooding, the North has found itself in a precarious position regarding the production of cereal grains, the lifeblood of the North Korean people. Substandard harvests in late 2020, it was hoped, would give way to better yields in 2021. However, with the continuation of the pandemic, difficulties in acquiring materials for the repair of roads and railways, and downward trends in crop conditions, the prognosis remains dire.

While the UN FAO reported favorable rainfall levels and crop health in April 2021, by July the estimated shortfall between domestic agricultural production and utilization was projected to be approximately 860,000 tons. A follow-up study from CSIS’s Beyond Parallel released in early October used satellite imagery to confirm the downward trend in crop health, especially in the northeastern provinces which were most negatively affected by the typhoons last year. 

Even transporting what little has been produced thus far has proven exceedingly difficult. Without fuel imports from China and due to incapacitated infrastructure, the DPRK central government is requiring farmers, most of whom are already malnourished, to transport rice to Pyeongyang on their backs. Along the way, these farmers are subjected to invasive searches to prevent grain theft, a crime punishable by years of hard labor in one of North Korea’s many gulags. It is likely that the inefficiency of manual transport will exacerbate food insecurity and stall supply lines, thereby worsening the burgeoning food crisis. Beyond this, however, this system predisposes farmers to engage in survival crimes, e.g. stealing rice to avoid starvation, which will likely lead to an increase in the populations of North Korea’s concentration camps. This has direct policy implications as the human rights abuses perpetrated in North Korean gulags are one of the primary obstacles to the US engaging with the DPRK under the North Korean Human Rights Act of 2004. In short, more prisoners mean more human rights violations in the camps and therefore a smaller chance that any negotiations with the North get off the ground.

Kim Jong Un’s clever solution to what he himself admitted to be a “food crisis” is to tell North Koreans to simply eat less until 2025 and to grow their own food. While this may seem like a Joseon-mal translation of the infamous phrase “let them eat cake,” he did come up with one other idea—to promote the rearing of black swans for consumption. According to the state media, black swan meat offers a “unique taste and high nutritional value.”

In all seriousness, the DPRK is facing a food shortage emergency that, assuming conditions continue to deteriorate, could approach the levels of the famine witnessed in the mid-1990s. To its credit, the DPRK government recognizes climate change as a significant contributing factor to this impending disaster, and it has renewed its commitments to reducing greenhouse emissions and mitigating marine pollution as a party to both the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Pairs Climate Accord. However, the fundamental reality remains that climate change is an issue of collective ethics, a transnational problem that demands solutions forged through openness to novel ideas, the adoption and implementation of new technologies, and cooperation with other nations. In these regards, North Korea is uniquely ill-equipped, and all the while its citizens suffer.

As such, now is the time for the international community to draw in Pyeongyang, not push it away. Humanitarian crises like these not only cost lives but dash any hopes of peace negotiations arising between the US and the DPRK in the future. Therefore, UN sanctions must be reduced and a multinational effort to assist in infrastructure repairs and distribute food aid with appropriate oversight within North Korea should be developed with US backing. Simply put, the world must face the harsh reality of this situation and act to oppose it. 

Consider this; imagine choosing between dying of starvation at home, dying of exposure trying to cross the Tumen River, or dying in a concentration camp either for attempting to escape or for merely stealing a handful of rice. This is the choice thousands of North Koreans will have to make in the months and years ahead, and it cannot be ignored by the free world.