Warning signs in N. Korea

By John Burton

North Korea recently urged its farmers to voluntarily contribute a larger portion of their harvests to state warehouses to feed troops and government workers.

This was the latest indication that this year's harvest may be worse than initially predicted due to droughts and typhoons that hit its grain-producing regions. North Korea's crop output last year reportedly hit its lowest level in a decade and this year's harvest could be 9 percent lower than last year.

Geoglam, a Swiss crop monitoring organization, recently reported that the main harvest in South and North Hwanghae and South Pyongan, provinces the country's breadbasket, was below average, based on satellite images. This was due to "irregular rainfall and low reservoir levels during the summer," which hampered irrigation. South Hwanghae Province, for example, reportedly received only half the average rainfall from April to July.

In September, the country was then hit by Typhoon Lingling, which flooded farmland in these regions. U.N. field visits found that maize, rice, chestnut and vegetable crops were damaged and up to 60 percent of soybean production was destroyed by the typhoon. The country also has to cope with a regional outbreak of swine fever, leading to reduced pork production.

This comes on top of a poor harvest in the spring, which forced the government to cut food rations from 550g to 300g per person. The U.N. now estimates that 11 million North Koreans, or 40 percent of the population, face the risk of malnutrition and need food aid.

Climate change can be blamed in part for the deteriorating agricultural conditions, with the country suffering either from prolonged periods of drought or punishing typhoons over the last several years.

North Korea is vulnerable to natural disasters, especially floods, due to deforestation and poor planning and infrastructure, such as the lack of secure water supplies to deal with droughts.

The country may also face a shortage of fertilizer, with its biggest plant, the Hungnam Fertilizer Complex, having been temporarily shut down this year, according to the Daily NK.

U.N. sanctions have banned the import of oil, a key ingredient in chemical fertilizers. Domestic production meets only a third of local fertilizer demand, with the rest imported, mainly from China. The fertilizer shortage is viewed as another reason for this year's poor harvest.

These conditions, including the call for larger "voluntary" contributions of crops under the state purchase scheme, is likely to put strains on key agricultural reform measures, such as the individual field responsibility system (FRS), which gives farmers more rights in managing their fields than under the collective farm system.

Any setback to the FRS, which was introduced several years ago on an experimental basis, could dash hopes of increasing agricultural productivity. The system allots small plots of land to individual families and allows them to keep a percentage of their crop yield.

Although yields are said to have increased as a result, support among farmers for the project has reportedly waned as the government has demanded a greater share of crops than initially expected.

A key problem is that farmers have to repay with their fall harvest crops for supplies of seeds, fertilizer and pesticides they received earlier in the year from collective farm management committees. Since they need to repay 10 times the cost of the original supplies, their share of contributions has increased as the price of these supplies rises when they become scarcer.

Describing it as "a multifaceted, protracted food insecurity situation," Ursula Mueller, assistant secretary-general of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) recently warned during a visit to Seoul that the "picture is really grim, and I am afraid it could further deteriorate if no actions are taken and especially if we don't receive urgent additional funding."

North Korea's international pariah status has meant that donors are reluctant to contribute to the U.N.'s budget request for its operations in North Korea. It has met only a quarter of its target amount of $120 million for this year. This represents the lowest amount collected for a U.N. aid recipient country, and the third lowest in terms of percentage of target achieved. "We must not wait for geopolitics to run its course to alleviate the suffering of millions of people," Mueller said.

In the meantime, international NGOs may have to take up some of the slack. For example, Mission East, a Danish NGO, opened an office in Pyongyang in September to better coordinate food distribution that it has been conducting since 2011. Mission East also received an exemption from U.N. sanctions this month to import agricultural processing machinery.

NGOs are playing an increased role in providing aid to North Korea after the U.S. agreed earlier this year to stop blocking U.N. exemptions for their activities.

John Burton (johnburtonft@yahoo.com), a former Korea correspondent for the Financial Times, is a Washington, D.C.-based journalist and consultant.