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The North Korean economy is doing badly, but keep some perspective

Tuesday, June 23rd, 2020

By: Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein

Sanctions and Covid-19 have fused together to put the North Korean economy in what can only reasonably be described as an awful situation. Trade first plummeted through sanctions, and then even further because of North Korea’s and China’s anti-Covid19 measures. And the fall continues, as these figures in Hankyoreh show:

Figures from the Korea International Trade Association (KITA) and Chinese customs authorities reviewed on June 18 show a major drop in the value of North Korean goods being exported to the Chinese market: US$10.7 million in January and February (-71.7% year on year), US$600,000 in March (-96.2%), and US$2.2 million in April (-90%). The value of North Korean exports to China, which stood at US$2.63 billion in 2016, has fallen since economic sanctions were toughened, decreasing to US$1.65 billion (-37.3%) in 2017 and US$195 million in 2018 (-88.2%). Exports rebounded in 2019, to US$285 million, but that was still less than a tenth of the value of exports in 2016.

But how bad are things?

Bloomberg ran an article yesterday with the angle that the North Korean economy is the “worst” in two decades, and that this is why the country is lashing out against South Korea with renewed vigor. To support the former claim, it cites figures claiming that the country’s economy will contract by a total of 6 percent this year due to the combination of sanctions and Covid-19.

But how reasonable is this take?

There is no doubting that things are bad, but some context is badly needed. One of course cannot equate an economic contraction with the overall situation. (Never mind that any number on this will be qualified guesswork at best.) A contraction is only the economy shrinking, and it means nothing if we don’t know what the starting point is. In 1997, North Korea was perhaps at the height of a devastating famine, after the economy crumbled following the collapse of the Soviet Union, and China vastly scaling back support.

Today, North Korea may be in an economic crisis of sorts. But it entered it on the back of several years of steadily increasing exports to China. These exports, in fact, grew by more than a factor of ten between 1998 and the record year of 2013. So the situation is so different that a comparison is hardly meaningful.

This is also true for the food situation. According to numbers from the World Food Program and the Food and Agriculture Organization, whose data is questionable but highly valuable, food production stood at 3.3 million tonnes in 2008, not an unusually low figure for the time. Contrast this with the projection that this year’s harvest will be 4.6 million tonnes. Not great, lower than it should be, lower than a few years ago, yes. But still not nearly the level of the disaster years.

Also, it is crucial to remember that even in ordinary times, a not insignificant proportion of trade with China occurs off the books. Throw an increasingly lower Chinese sense of caring what the US thinks about its sanctions implementation into the mix and you’ve got, well, likely a lot more trade happening under the radar. This is what news reports from inside North Korea have been saying for quite a while.

Not that things aren’t bad, or that North Korea’s recent actions have to do with sanctions (they almost certainly do). But don’t forget about context or proportions.

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Posted in Agriculture, China, International trade, Political economy, South Korea, Statistics | No Comments »

Why Kim Jong-un “came back” at a fertilizer factory

Wednesday, May 6th, 2020

By: Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein

The choice of a fertilizer factory inspection as the place for Kim Jong-un to “return” after his three-week absence was no coincidence. On May 2nd, Rodong Sinmun reported that Kim had toured and cut the tape at the Sunchon Fertilizer Factory. To do this in the month of May especially is highly symbolic, and we should understand it as a signal that Kim and the state are very serious about alleviating North Korea’s perpetually difficult food situation.

Sure, in the budget report at the Supreme People’s Assembly in the middle of last month, the claim was repeated of a bumper harvest last year. This claim is extremely unlikely to be true, as the numbers show, but should not be read literally in any case. Indeed, given North Korea’s economic situation, the food situation is remarkably stable, although always difficult. But still, these two claims aren’t necessarily inherently contradictory. Kim can claim a bumper harvest while also working to stabilize the food situation over the long run. Fertilizer has long been an achilles’ heel for North Korean agriculture, and historically the country has been highly dependent on chemical fertilizer. One of the main catalysts for the famine in the 1990s was the Soviet Union and China cutting of oil subsidies. North Korea’s ability to produce such fertilizers, whose production process is very energy-intensive, subsequently collapsed. The Rodong article announcing Kim’s “return”, unsurprisingly, highlights the completion of the fertilizer factory as a victory for North Korea’s independence and self-reliance.

This focus on fertilizers is not unique in North Korean media. Just the other day, on May 5th, an article in Rodong lauded the factory construction as a crucial step for North Korea to remain independent and reject “reform and opening”. Another the same day covered a new organic fertilizer factory in Sinyang County. Articles about fertilizer factories – particularly organic ones – have been highly prolific, especially since around 2016. That focus also isn’t new. The extensive use of chemical fertilizer damaged North Korea’s soil badly, and Kim Jong-il once gave an entire speech wholly focused on the supremacy of organic fertilizers.

Just like the focus on fertilizers, it’s no coincidence that it happens in May. This month marks the beginning of the main planting season in North Korea. The food security situation is already concerning, not least with the country’s coronavirus prevention measures keeping crucial shipments of agricultural inputs such as seeds reportedly backed up and waiting to enter the country. China has previously provided crucial fertilizer aid to North Korea (in addition to grain shipments), and perhaps still does so. But with China highly concerned about keeping re-infections out, as well as watching out for its own stability first and foremost, it may be more reluctant than it otherwise would to provide aid to North Korea to make up for a difficult harvest, should it be necessary.

Moreover, a significant question mark remains around North Korea’s fertilizer production efforts. Oil is still a central input for fertilizer manufacturing, as well as for irrigation efforts. How does North Korea intend to operate and power factories such as the one Kim visited in the long run? Regardless of what factories it builds, resources scarcity will continue to be a significant stumbling block for now.*

 

*(For some reading related to this issue, see the recent debate between Hazel Smith and James Kelly at PacNet.)

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Fertilizer shortages in North Korea due to border lockdown

Wednesday, April 1st, 2020

Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein

Reports Daily NK:

North Korea’s farms in the country’s breadbasket are suffering from a lack of fertilizer and other agricultural supplies amid the shutdown of the Sino-North Korean border, Daily NK sources have reported.

“Farms are lacking agricultural supplies throughout the province even as we are heading into the planting season,” a North Hwanghae Province-based source reported on Mar. 31.

North Korean farms typically focus on preparing for the year’s farming during January to March, acquiring needed fertilizer, pesticides and other supplies.

The country’s agricultural sector, however, relies on imports of agricultural supplies and typically trading companies are putting on all their efforts into acquiring supplies during this period.

With the closure of the Sino-North Korean border and a general halt in trade and smuggling across the border, however, farms are not getting the supplies they need this year.

“North Korean authorities are telling farms to figure out things themselves, even telling them to make their own electricity,” the source said. “Farmers are upset.”

North Korean officials have moved to increase supplies of fertilizer to farms by ordering fertilizer factories throughout the country to increase their production beyond this year’s original production quotas.

“Factory managers are full of anxiety because they have to create massive amounts of fertilizer – more than they are accustomed to,” the source noted.

North Korean cities and counties typically have their own fertilizer factories. Most of these factories, however, are small-scale and are unable to produce enough to supply all the farms in their respective areas.

(Source: Ha Yoon Ah, “N. Korea’s farms face shortages of fertilizer and other supplies,” Daily NK, April 1st, 2020.)

More than immediate rice prices rising, this sort of news is perhaps the most concerning in the long run, and we’ll only begin to see the effects in a few months.

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North Korea and the coronavirus: why internal controls may be working

Tuesday, February 25th, 2020

By: Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein

At this point, it seems unlikely that not a single case of the coronavirus would have reached North Korea, despite government media claims. The border to China is quite porous even when controls are tight, and the provinces bordering North Korea had seen, as of last week, some 200 cases. The government has ordered schools shut for one month starting five days ago, on February 20th. Unsurprisingly, it has taken special care to protect Pyongyang from the virus, and face mask distribution goes first to the one percent.

The economic effects of all this are very troubling. As this blog has previously noted, markets and society overall seem to be taking the border closure much more seriously than sanctions, and have reacted with much more anxiety than when new rounds of sanctions measures have been levied by the international community in the past. Prices have climbed quite drastically, as we shall look at in some detail in this post. They have risen by much more in Hyesan than in the rest of the country, which tells us something interesting about the government’s internal controls. That differences in market prices are increasing could be a sign that internal controls on travel across provincial boundaries are being enforced quite effectively. When traders cannot as effectively move their goods to where demand is the highest, prices will increase. One also has to bear in mind that Hyesan is very dependent on trade with China to begin with, and we should therefore expect prices there to increase disproportionately.

(My apologies for the awkward look of the graphs — please click for full size!)

In normal times too, prices tend to be higher in Hyesan than in other cities. But usually not by that much. Notice what happens around  January, though: prices skyrocket all over the country but they do so by much more in Hyesan.

This is particularly evident when we look at price differences. Normally, prices are between 5–10 percent higher in Hyesan than in both Pyongyang and Sinuiju. Since the border closure, however, they have gone beyond 20 percent over both cities, according to price observations from the past few weeks. 
Again, the border closure to China may be a central part of the explanation. But rice itself isn’t typically a good that North Korea relies so much on Chinese imports for. We don’t know the precise proportions, but likely, most rice consumed in North Korea in an ordinary year is grown within the country. A likely conclusion is, therefore, that the closure of provincial borders within North Korea is being enforced with some efficiency, making it much more difficult for market traders to transport goods such as rice between different markets in the country. This adds to the already stark economic difficulties from the closure of the border to China. Many other prices have risen drastically as well: gas prices in Hyesan are now 46 percent higher than in late December of last year, and 38 percent higher in the country as a whole. The government has attempted, reportedly with some success, to institute price controls on the markets, but as the story goes with such state attempts in general, they are unlikely to last as black markets arise to respond to shortages.

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Almost a year after the alarm bells: following up North Korea’s food crisis (and an aid success story?)

Thursday, February 20th, 2020

By Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein

There exists two very radically different narratives on North Korea’s food situation and harvest of last year. The strangest pat of the story is that the state, likely through its different arms, are able to hold both stories at once. The first was the one trumpeted out by the North Korean government and international aid agencies last year (as well as some scholars), that North Korea was facing a famine. The second one is from Kim Jong-un’s plenum speech in late December, where he claimed that North Korea’s harvest was the largest one “on record“.

The Red Cross (IFRC) released an assessment report last month, and though it leaves many questions unanswered, it’s a fascinating and much more detailed read than most assessments of North Korea’s food situation over the past two years. I list some of the highlights below.

First, the most remarkable finding of the report is perhaps how big of a difference aid and support to irrigation can make. I have previously written that the most likely reason the food situation turned out better than expected is that China stepped in with aid. This still seems to be the most plausible scenario, but it is also possible that aid came not in the form of food deliveries, but in equipment and fuel for irrigation, most likely it was a mix of both. If the report is to be believed, and I see no reason to doubt its veracity and methodological grounding, we can extrapolate that improving irrigation can more than double harvests in certain environments. The table below comes from page 5 of IFRC, “DPR Korea: Drought and Food Insecurity Final Report DREF Operation n° MDRKP013,” 17 January, 2020, http://adore.ifrc.org/Download.aspx?FileId=286144, accessed February 20, 2020:

(Note: mt/ha = metric ton/hectare. Click to enlarge.) 

As the table shows, expected versus actual harvests of early crops more than doubled in three of the communities surveyed. One farmer interviewed in the report says that thanks to the IFRC water pumps, their harvest was the best in a decade in the end, and not the worst, as the international community first projected. The total cost of the operation was the equivalent of less than $250,000 for a strong impact on communities holding 34,414 people. Scale that up by 100 and we have $25 million for measures that could drastically help around 3.5 million people. And so on and so forth. Of course, this isn’t a precise or grounded calculation by any means, but it does give a sense of the proportions at hand. $25 million is a third of what North Korea spent on tobacco imports from China last year. Remedying difficult farming conditions isn’t necessarily all that expensive, but can be very, very effective. (Before drawing any certain conclusions from this, do be sure to read the report. It highlights the specific conditions of the localities in question.) It is often said that North Korea’s geographical features make it naturally inhospitable to agriculture and food production, but efficiency and capacity could be vastly improved through investments in agricultural infrastructure.

Second, even with the improvements that came after the initial food crisis alarm bells, none of them make it even remotely likely that Kim Jong-un’s claim of the “best harvest on record” was true. The report highlights some of the difficult weather conditions the country faced in 2018 and 2019. For example:

The agricultural production this yea r(2019) in DPRK was seriously impacted by the after-effects of the droughts that have occurred consecutively over the past 5 years.The situation was worsened by th elittle snowfall last winter and almost no rainfall in the 1st quarter of this year. The unusually low levels of precipitation continued in April and May,combined with higher than usual temperatures. As a result, the water levels in the reservoirs are much lower than normal. These conditions have remained the same during the summer months.

(Source: p. 3 of the report.)

Third, the report raises several intriguing questions about the IFRC in North Korea. To the best of my understanding, the IFRC has a chapter in North Korea but like all organizations in the country, it is for all intents and purposes a government entity. The report references its personnel several times — ” DPRK RCS has a good volunteer network established in these areas” (p. 2), “the team also coordinated with and consulted the Red Cross branches, local authorities, and the State Hydro-Meteorological Agency” (p. 2), “workshop…with community people” (p. 8), et cetera — and it would be very interesting to learn more about how the organization functions on the ground, how its staff are recruited, what “volunteer” actually means, et cetera.

Notwithstanding the questions that reports such as this one give rise to, they are crucial resources for knowledge on North Korean agriculture and food production.

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Did North Korea really see its best harvest “on record last year?

Friday, January 17th, 2020

By: Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein

As I and Peter Ward discovered some weeks ago, the claim by Kim Jong-un that North Korea had its “best harvest on record” did not make it into the English-language summary of Kim’s plenum speech put out by KCNA. Several media outlets have picked up on this claim, and that is not surprising. Not even a year ago, last spring and summer, both the North Korean government and UN organs sounded the alarm bells that North Korea’s harvest was so disastrous as to suggest a famine might be looming.

So what happened?

First of all, it should be noted, as always, that one must be extremely cautious in studying data on anything related to the North Korean economy. Most people who follow North Korea are well aware of this but especially when it comes to an issue like this, one cannot be cautious enough.

I focus here on the claim by Kim that the harvest was the best “on record”. It may well have been a good harvest, or at least a much better one than anticipated. This seems to be the case. The only attempt I’ve seen at a numerical estimate comes from South Korea’s Rural Development Administration. They estimate that North Korea’s harvest grew by around two percent in 2019 over 2018. This sounds fairly plausible and could perhaps be explained by weather conditions unexpectedly improving, or fertilizer donations from China, and the like. Or the government and FAO’s projections were simply wrong from the beginning.

To understand why it is so unlikely that this year’s harvest would be the best on record, we have to look at what ‘the record” really says. The following graph shows North Korean harvest figures between 1990 and 2017, as recorded by the FAO. These figures are not independently recorded or verified but, to the best of my knowledge, generated by FAO in cooperation with the North Korean government, or provided directly by the government. Usually, that would be a problem, but here, it’s actually quite helpful since it helps us analyze the claim about the “record”.

Graph by NK Econ Watch/Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein. Data source: FAOSTAT.

I downloaded these numbers from the FAO database some months ago. For whatever reason, I’m unable to access the data at their website at this time of writing, and therefore, can’t fill in the data further back. This data also differs somewhat from other data on North Korean harvests from the World Food Program and FAO. Still, they match quite closely with other data the two organizations have published in recent years about North Korean food production. Again, keep in mind that this data is produced and published in concert with the North Korean government. In that sense, these numbers are the “record”.

Over the past few years, estimated harvests have gravitated between four and five million tons in milled rice equivalent.  (You can read more here about what that actually means.) In 1993, North Korea’s record of harvests notes 7.5 million tons. Harvests hovered around 8 million tons in the 1980s – again, to the best of my recollection, as I can’t access the FAO statistics database numbers of North Korea at this time of writing.

Graph by NK Econ Watch/Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein. Data source: WFP/FAO. 2019 is a projected figure.

For Kim’s claim to be true, therefore, this past year’s harvest would have had to go from around five million tons in 2018, to surpassing eight million tons in 2019. I am no agricultural economist, but Kim would likely need something like a miracle of nature for this to happen. I am not aware of North Korea’s landmass suddenly doubling, for example, or the amount of arable land increasing by one third overnight. Therefore, Kim’s claim is most likely, beyond reasonable doubt, simply not true. Note also that outlets such as Daily NK have reported that the government has taken predatory measures against grain trade as a result of what the outlet describes as “poor agricultural yields”.

In other words, there is very little to back up the claim made by Kim (and subsequently by North Korea-affiliated Choson Sinbo). This claim is a break with a pattern over the past few years, where North Korean media has been very frank – often, probably exaggerating – in describing difficulties and damage caused by flooding and inclement weather. There are several reasons why this may have changed with regards to the harvest. For one, food security a very basic need for any country. With bad food security, North Korea appears weak in the face of sanctions. It would hardly be the first time the North Korean government lied for strategic, propaganda purposes. It is also possible that harvests were much better than anticipated, and that Kim’s claim is merely a strong exaggeration. Perhaps “best on record” should be read as a superlative, rhetorical claim rather than a literal one. At the end of the day, we simply don’t know, and the ways of the inefficient North Korean bureaucracy are mysterious.

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North Korea’s largest fertilizer plant reportedly shut down

Wednesday, November 6th, 2019

By Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein

Fertilizer production is one area where UN sanctions appear to have rather dire unintended consequences. Daily NK reports:

Daily NK reported in February of this year that production at the complex was gradually falling.

UN sanctions and the ensuing ban on the import of oil, a key ingredient in chemical fertilizers, may have also been a factor in the factory’s closure, the source added.

FAILING TO MEET DEMAND

North Korea’s fertilizer production is currently meeting only one third of the country’s total demand. North Korea uses a total of 1.55 million tons of chemical fertilizer per year but only produces about 500,000 tons, Daily NK sources said.

North Korea relies predominantly on imported fertilizer. Farm workers reportedly prefer the fertilizer from the Hungnam Fertilizer Complex because it is superior in quality than fertilizer imported from China. The military was given priority for fertilizer produced at the complex.

The shortage of fertilizer is adversely affecting agricultural production, particularly given that this year’s production of fertilizer has fallen far short of demand, Daily NK sources said.

“Collective farms have had an overall poorer harvest this year compared to the last,” said one of the sources. “Farmers are blaming the lack of fertilizer for the poor harvest.”

UN SANCTIONS HAMPER PRODUCTION

North Korean authorities have made various attempts to normalize fertilizer production. For example, the authorities have installed large ammonia synthesis facilities and introduced 4,000 horsepower compression engines to help increase fertilizer production, Daily NK sources confirmed.

The import of a wide range of machinery and raw materials is banned under UN sanctions, however. Some North Korea observers argue that the ban on these imports only make it harder for North Korea to improve its agricultural production by itself.

“North Korea needs a dependable supply of coal, oil and electricity, and a total revamp of its fertilizer manufacturing facilities to normalize fertilizer production. None of this is possible due to UN sanctions,” a former North Korean agricultural official familiar with fertilizer production in the country told Daily NK. “If the Hungnam Fertilizer Complex remains nonoperational, it is highly likely next year’s agricultural production will be adversely affected.”

WORKERS REASSIGNED TO OTHER PROJECTS

Daily NK sources also reported that some 70% of the workers at the Hungnam Fertilizer Complex were sent to construction sites throughout the country after the complex shutdown. These construction sites included the Wonsan-Kalma Coastal Tourist Zone, the Hamhung-Wonsan highway, and the Tanchon Power Plant. Some workers were even sent to the fields to farm.

“The Hungnam Fertilizer Complex employed more than 10,000 workers. Lots of workers complained after they were sent to do other work following the shutdown,” one of the sources told Daily NK. “Many people wanted to work at the complex because it gave employees a stable supply of rations. That’s all in the past now.”

Article source:
N. Korea’s largest fertilizer complex no longer operational 
Jang Seul Gi
Daily NK
2019-11-06

Note that the article confirms that rations are (at least in this case and most likely usually, if at all) distributed by enterprises as remuneration rather than through PDS centers.

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Rice prices up in North Korea, market price data says. How bad is it?

Friday, August 2nd, 2019

By Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein

Asia Press reports that rice prices have “skyrocketed” in North Korea this month:

The price of domestic rice, which stood at roughly 4,500 won (about 0.53 USD) per kilogram for most of the year, began to rise in July, surpassing 5,500 won (about 0.65 USD) per kilogram by the end of the month.

Multiple reporting partners living in the northern regions of the country were asked to investigate the reason behind the rise in the price of rice.

A reporting partner living in a city in Hamgyong Province explained, “The rice merchants say that, ‘domestic rice is scarce, so it is only a matter of time before it runs out’. The rise in price will likely continue from after the next harvest until the end of the year.”

Still, rice is not disappearing from the markets. Imported Chinese rice is sold at stable prices across all markets.

Most of this Chinese rice, however, is old and was harvested some time ago. The North Korean government, though, continues to import the low-quality, cheap Chinese rice, favoring ‘quantity over quality’.

Domestically produced North Korean rice, on the other hand, is not old and sticky. Due to its higher popularity, it is generally 5% more expensive than Chinese rice. This slight price difference was very stable and had remained unchanged over the last 20 years.

The cause of the domestic rice’s scarcity and subsequent rise in price is presumed to be the effects of last year’s heat wave and drought on production.

A rise from 4,500 won to 5,500 in only a few weeks is indeed quite noteworthy and potentially alarming. But what does context tell us?

I know very little about where in the country Asia Press sources its price data from, but I suspect it’s primarily or perhaps even only North Hamgyong province. It does seem like this steep price rise may be a somewhat localized phenomenon. Looking at the Daily NK price data gives us a little bit of a clue. It hasn’t been updated since July 23rd, so it may be that it will catch up and register similar shifts later on. But looking at the numbers for the past few weeks, prices in Hyesan have increased much more than in Pyongyang and Sinuiju.

So this might, for various reasons, be a localized phenomenon.

It should also be noted that prices usually rise during the summer months, as the next harvest draws closer, and storage runs lower and lower. Prices last summer around this time were much lower than present, but in 2017, they were significantly higher. So I would caution against drawing any hard conclusions as of now, and hopefully the next report by Daily NK will tell us more.

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Farmers in North Korea sent to labor camps for stealing potato seeds

Tuesday, June 11th, 2019

Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein

Perhaps this wouldn’t be a problem if farmers worked for themselves to a greater extent, rather than primarily to fill the state quota…

Daily NK reports:

A farmer at a potato farm in Yanggang Province was recently sent to a forced labor camp for stealing seeds meant for planting, a Daily NK source reported on June 3. The incident provides a glimpse into the difficulties faced during the potato planting season  in May.

The farm, a major producer of potatoes located in Taehongdan County, Ryanggang Province, is in an area where locals plant potato seeds for a two-week period starting in early May to ensure the seeds are planted on time. Potatoes in North Korea are important because they can replace rice and wheat and are the major source of calories for some parts of Ryanggang Province.

North Korean farmers refrain from removing the germinal disk from potato seeds and plant potatoes whole to increase yields. The state-run publication Rodong Sinmun recently reported that potato production reached record levels last year.

“There have been many cases where farmers have stolen potato seeds during the ‘potato planting battle’ period,” a source in Ryanggang Province told Daily NK. “The authorities made an example out of two farmers who stole seeds by sending them to a disciplinary labor center for six months.”

At larger farms in Taehongdan County, farmers use trackers to plant whole potatoes. Farmers working on smaller farms, however, plant the potatoes themselves. The potatoes need to be planted 4-5 centimeters apart, but farmers frequently do not follow this rule. Instead, they plant the potatoes farther apart and then hide the potato seeds that are leftover underground to take home later.

“Farm managers have worried constantly about this issue, so they have told farmers that stealing seeds is tantamount to destroying the Party’s agricultural policies,” said the source.

Poorer farmers, however, are faced with hunger during the planting season so they steal potato seeds regardless of these warnings and even sell the seeds in local markets, the source said.

Taehung-dan is, of course, the site for Kim Jong-il’s famous speech on the “potato revolution“.

Full article:
North Korean farmers sent to labor camp for stealing potato seeds
Kim Yoo Jin
Daily NK
2019-06-11

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North Korean media reports drought impacts on rice harvest

Wednesday, June 5th, 2019

Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein

Yonhap:

North Korean state media highlighted worsening water shortages in one of the country’s major rice-producing regions on Wednesday, raising worries about possible harm to this year’s harvest.

“Not a few areas in the South Hwanghae Province are now facing serious water shortage caused by a combination of various factors,” the Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of the North’s ruling party, said in an article.

The paper said that the water reservoirs in some areas of the province are falling below normal levels, making it hard for farmers to plant rice in their paddies as scheduled.

The North’s official Korean Central News Agency also reported that the drought is hindering rice-planting efforts in South Hwanghae Province, expecting that precipitation will likely stay low until mid-June.

Hwanghae Province is known as one of the largest rice-producing areas for North Korea. The apparently ongoing drought in North Korea is feared to aggravate the already strained food supply in the impoverished state.

Article source:
N. Korean media highlight drought in major rice-producing province
Yonhap News
2019-06-05

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