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N. Korea's food shortages serious this year
SEOUL, March 11 -- North Korea's food shortages will continue to be severe this century year due largely to shrinking international handouts, soaring grain prices and an outbreak of a highly infectious animal disease, a researcher said Friday.

Kwon Tae-jin, a North Korea expert at the Korea Rural Economic Institute in Seoul, said that he expects the North's grain harvest this year to be about 100,000 tons less than last year.

South Korean experts and officials say the impoverished communist neighbor probably produced about 4.1 million tons of grain last year, similar to a year earlier.

On Saturday, the U.N.'s World Food Program plans to brief foreign officials in Pyongyang on the situation of North Korea's harvests for last year, according to a diplomatic source in Seoul. Earlier this week, South Korea's Unification Minster Hyun In-taek said the harvest would amount to "4.1 million tons, plus or minus."

According to Kwon, the country will need at least 5.5 million tons to feed its hungry 24 million population this year. Since North Korea conducted a series of missiles launches and nuclear tests, international assistance has been curtailed while South Korea suspended its official food aid amid high cross-border tensions.
Neither the Norks nor the aid agencies have figured out 'cause and effect'...
Foot-and-mouth disease has also hit the North, the country recently reported to an international animal health organization, a development likely to be harsh on its farmers because they depend largely on cows to cultivate their land.
Posted by: Steve White 2011-03-12
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=318001