Archive for the ‘Food’ Category

Land reclamation in the DPRK

Saturday, August 22nd, 2009

The DPRK has long been pursuing a policy of food self-sufficiency by expanding its stock of arable land via reclamation from the sea.  Below are some of the more notable land reclamation projects.

Taegye Island land reclamation project
About 20km south of Sinuiju is Taegyedo.  According to KCNA, the Taegyedo tideland constructors have recently dammed about 14 kilometers of rough sea to acquire 8,800 hectares of land.  The sea wall makes it possible to protect the farmland from salt damage. Rice has already been planted in the paddy field of 2,600 hectares. A great ring road will circle the entire project and fresh water and sea water reservoirs with shellfish and lobster farms and salt fields will be built.  Here is a Korea story about it.  Here is an image from Google Earth:

taegyedo.JPG

(Click on image for larger version. Coordinates: 39°50’43.01″N 124°14’3.12″E)

Sin Island (probably not as much fun as it sounds)
Prior to Taegyedo, the DPRK reclaimed the Pidansom Tideland–reclaiming 5,500 hectares from the water.  This bought Sindo County ito existance. Here is the location on Google Earth:

sindo.JPG

(Click on image for larger version. Coordinates: 39°47’38.18″N 124°28’11.11″E)

Tasado Tideland reclamation
Appx 1000 hectares.  This is my best guess for the location:

tasado.JPG

(Click on image for larger version. Coordinates: 39°49’17.18″N 124°25’52.14″E)

Kwaksan
Image from Google Earth:

kwaksan.JPG

(Click on image for larger version. Coordinates: 39°49’17.18″N 124°25’52.14″E)

Rather than using its comparative advantages  (via international trade and investment) to increase living standards at home, the DPRK has chosen to invest its capital in the production of agricultural goods.  Unfortunately this is yet another case where poor economic policy makes perfect political sense.

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DPRK aims to increase food rations

Wednesday, August 12th, 2009

Kim Jong il sets sights on increasing processed food rationing in order to improve the daily lives of the people
Institute for Far Eastern Studies (IFES)
NK Brief No. 09-8-10-1
8/10/2009

North Korean authorities, recognizing that rationing of processed foods is directly linked to the daily lives of the residents of North Korea, are concentrating on a policy of increasing distribution as part of the campaign to build a ‘Strong and Prosperous Nation’ by 2012. The policy calls for the construction of regional food processing facilities throughout the country and using domestic ingredients for all processed foods. In addition, the government plans to undertake diversification of small-scale factories in order to produce soybean paste, soy sauce, cooking oil and other staples, as well as noodles, rice-cake and other foods, all kinds of side dishes, and alcoholic beverages.

This movement was announced in concurrence with Kim Jong Il’s visit to the Samilpo Special Products Factory and Store, both run by the military, on April 7, just two days after the North’s launch of a long-range rocket. This factory, on the bank of the Daedong River, produces over 350 kinds of edibles, including noodles, rice-cakes, oil, sweets, alcoholic drinks, processed meats and fish products. During his visit, Kim Jong Il is said to have stated, “Today, I am happier than during the launch of the Kwangmyeongseong 2,” emphasizing his interest in boosting food production.

On July 15, (North) Korean Central Broadcasting announced the formation of construction offices in Jagang, North Pyongan and other provinces to oversee the building of food production complexes, and the dispatch of “shock troops” to bolster construction efforts.

Recently, the construction of large-scale factories to produce foodstuffs out of each region’s local stock has been pursued in every province in the country. Even at the Cabinet level, a ’Production Workers’ Conference’ was held, bringing together responsible authorities and local production experts to discuss a course for quickly improving services provided to the general population.

In order to effectively implement the North’s policy of increasing rations of foodstuffs, the Standing Committee of the Supreme People’s Assembly issued an order to establish a Ministry of Foodstuff and Daily Necessities Industry.

As North Korea tries to implement this type of measure to boost production and rationing, failure to improve food shortage conditions and economic hardships while at the same time mobilizing the population in a drive to establish a Strong and Prosperous Nation has led to growing outcries among residents. North Korean authorities appear to be introducing these measures in order to placate these complaints.

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North Korea exports total USD $1.13 billion in 2008

Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009

Institute for Far Eastern Studies (IFES)
NK Brief No. 09-7-22-1
7/22/2009

According to a report released by the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA), mineral products again topped the list of DPRK exports, accounting for 41.3 percent of goods sent out of the country last year. The KOTRA report, “2008 DPRK Trade Trends,” states that the North’s 2008 exports, totaling 1,130,213,000 dollars, increased by 23 percent over the 918.77 million USD-worth of goods exported in 2007.

With the exception of plastic and wooden goods, North Korean exports grew in all areas. Mineral products accounted for 41.3 percent; non-ferrous minerals made up 16.8 percent, textiles accounted for 10.6 percent; chemical plastics made up 7.6 percent; electrical and electronic machinery made up 7 percent; and animal products accounted for 3.6 percent.

Mineral goods were up 33.5 percent over last year, recording sales of 465.44 million USD. This sector has shown continuous growth over the last five years. In 2004, trade in these goods brought in 152.28 million USD; in 2005, 243.66 million USD; in 2006, 244.43 million USD; and in 2007, 349.58 million USD.

Since 2003, North Korea has concentrated on invigorating the light-industrial sector, and has emphasized the export of manufactured goods. However, last year, exports of mineral products and non-ferrous minerals combined to make up a total of 58.1 percent of all exports; the North has been unable to restructure its export sector or satisfactorily boost light-industrial manufacturing.

North Korea’s imports grew as well, to more than twice that of exports. Bringing in goods worth 2,685,478,000 USD, imports grew by 32 percent over the 2.023 billion in imports during 2007. In 2008, mineral products accounted for 25.9 percent of imports; fibers accounted for 11.9 percent; electrical and electronic machinery, 11.5 percent; processed food items, 8.8 percent; chemical and heavy industrial goods, 7.5 percent; and non-ferrous minerals, 6.6 percent. Import of fibers, processed food, and mineral products grew, while the import of animal products, vegetable products and automobiles fell.

Crude petroleum, the North’s largest import item, was imported exclusively from China, and was up 46.9 percent (414.31 million USD) over 2007 (281.97 million USD). However, due to the loss of other sources of fuel, overall imports of crude grew by a mere 1 percent.

Import of grains fell in 2008, recording only 86.24 million USD – a fall of 25.6 percent from the 115.86 million USD in grain imports during 2007. KOTRA explains that due to instability in the grain market, imports from China of rice and barley were halted in April, while corn imports were halted in August.

(Note: Here is the KOTRA web page.  It is not a user-friendly site and I was unable to find the report in English.)

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Pyongyang Strikes Back: North Korean Policies of 2002–08 and Attempts to Reverse “De-Stalinization from Below”

Wednesday, July 15th, 2009

Andrei Lankov
Asia Policy 8, July 2009
The National Bureau of Asian Research

Download the article (PDF) here. 

Executive Summary
This article explains why the North Korean government has attempted to reassert state control over society—which had been eroding from 1994–2002—and offers predictions regarding the impact that this shift will likely have on North Korean society.

Main Argument
From 1994 to 2002 North Korean society changed tremendously: state-run industry collapsed, the rationing system ceased to function, and free-market activity, though still technically illegal or semi-legal, became most citizen’s major source of income. Although not initiated by the government, in 2002 some of these spontaneous changes won the belated and conditional approval of the regime.

The evidence emerging in the last three to four years demonstrates, however, that the North Korean government has chosen not to tolerate those changes. This policy of recrudescence, while economically self-destructive, makes political sense because the existence of an affluent and free South Korea makes North Korea far more insecure. The leadership in Pyongyang has reason to believe that any domestic liberal reform in North Korea would lead to a regime collapse.

Policy Implications
1. Pyongyang’s decision to reject reformist policies is based on a rational and well-informed assessment of North Korea’s domestic and international situation. Therefore, the outside world can do very little to influence the regime’s position, and thus there is no chance of meaningful reform in North Korea in the foreseeable future as long as the current regime remains in power.

2. Because the current policy makes sustainable economic growth impossible, the North Korean government will need to rely on stratagems to secure vital foreign aid, with the U.S. being one of the main (but not only) targets of these maneuvers. The “North Korean problem” will remain a part of the international landscape in the foreseeable future.

3. If the current attempt by the government at counter-reform fails, this failure will create additional avenues for influencing the North Korean government from within.

Download the article (PDF) here. 

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DPRK land rezoning policy

Monday, July 13th, 2009

For at least a decade the DPRK has been rezoning state-owned agricultural land into standard grids.  Here is a good example of the policy as seen from Google Earth (Ryokpho, Pyongyang):

 

     

Before (2000-11-5)            After (2005-8-5)

The Handure Plain is one of the most “popular” areas where this policy has been carried out:

 

handure-plain.JPG

Here are some KCNA stories about the policy:

Rural Community of Korea Conspicuous with True Feature of Socialism
Pyongyang, July 6 [2009](KCNA) — The three revolutions, ideological, technical and cultural, have been pushed ahead and the assistance to and leadership over the countryside by the government stepped up, making it possible to assimilate the peasantry to the working class and industrialize agriculture rapidly and change the looks of the countryside day by day.

The fields under cultivation have been standardized like a paduk (go) board and unique gravity-fed waterways and many dwelling houses have been constructed across the country to convert the countryside into a socialist fairyland good to live in.

Typical of such model farms are the Migok Co-op Farm in Sariwon City, North Hwanghae Province, the Sinam Co-op Farm in Ryongchon County, North Phyongan Province, the Chongsan Co-op Farm in Kangso County, South Phyongan Province and the Samjigang Co-op Farm in Jaeryong County, South Hwanghae Province and others.

The Migok Co-op Farm has constructed dwelling houses in tiers so as to see the vast field and the road leads to each block and each house. A large orchard has been arranged in front of the village and a resting site built on the hill covered with forests.

Wonderful is the landscape of the Ryongchon Plain in North Phyongan Province where life-giving water is flowing along the Paekma-Cholsan Waterway and rice plants are growing well in the standardized paddy fields.

Poman-ri, Sohung County, North Hwanghae Province, was once an out-of-the-way place with nothing to show except wild geese flying over it. But it, with a fishing farm in front of it and a forest of fruit trees in the rear, is now called one of the eight beautiful spots in the Songun era.

The horizon in Handure Plain and sea of potato-flowers at Taehongdan are also well known among the Koreans as ones of the above-said beautiful spots.

Electricity finds its way to all parts of the country and methane gas has been introduced to villages. Increasing in number are apricot tree villages and houses with many pear trees and persimmon trees where all sorts of flowers are in full bloom in spring and are pervaded with fruit aroma in summer and autumn.

While giving field guidance to the Tongbong Co-op Farm in Hamju County, South Hamgyong Province some time ago, General Secretary Kim Jong Il said that the farm village with cozy modern dwelling houses built on a sunny hillside and the co-op fields where green crops are swaying and farm machines are working look like a beautiful picture. He stressed that this is the laudable real feature of our socialist rural community.

Today the agricultural working people of Korea are all out to bring about a turn in the agricultural production with the responsibility for being in charge of the main front for the building of a great, prosperous and powerful nation.

Land leveling and rezoning completed
Pyongyang, May 16 [2000](KCNA) — The appearance of the land in North Phyongan Province, the northwestern part of the DPRK, has changed beyond recognition.

Not only the cooperative fields on the west coast from the 40 km-long Unjon plain and Pakchon plain to Ryongchon plain but the fields in in-between and mountainous areas from Kwanha plain in Nyongbyon and Handure plain in Thaechon to Hongnam plain in Uiju have turned into a vast expanse of fertile rice fields.

At least 50,000 hectares of rice fields were leveled and rezoned into standardized fields, each with a thousand or hundreds of Phyong (one Phyong is six square feet).

Thousands of hectares of land came under plough after the disappearance of a lot of ridges between paddies and swamps.

This great change in the land in north Phyongan province is a shining fruition of the gigantic and bold operation and plan of the great leader Kim Jong Il.

After finding great possibilities of increasing grain production at present in the land leveling and rezoning project, he wisely led the overall project. He set the target and stages of the project and clearly taught details of the project such as order of work to be done, the area of a field and even the issue of increasing the fertility of the rezoned fields. He saw to it that necessary forces and means for carrying out the project were sent there and it was undertaken as a movement involving the entire party and army and all the people.

As a result, the gigantic nature-transforming project was successfully completed under the difficult conditions where the province was hard pressed for everything.

Farming preparations are now in full swing in these fields.

Active land rezoning in North Phyongan Province
Pyongyang, November 30 [1999](KCNA) — Land rezoning is in full force in North Phyongan Province, northwestern part of Korea.

This project is being carried on the basis of the experience of last year’s land rezoning in Kangwon Province with the nation-wide attention and support. Through it, land covering more than 9,000 hectares was readjusted in the last one month.

In particular, the Kangwon provincial workers engaged in land improvement in Tongrim county removed the soil of 1.062 million cubic metres and rearranged 1,100 hectares of land in a short span of time by displaying mass heroism and devotion.

The workers from Pyongyang are now carrying out their daily quota 2 times that in October and have readjusted in the main the Handure plain in Thaechon county covering some 1,600 hectares, in 40 days or 50.

Thus as many as 13,000 fields were reduced to 3,000 fields and scores of hectares of cultivated land obtained.

The workers of Nampho city and North Hwanghae Province in charge of land rezoning in Nyongbyon and Ryongchon counties have achieved successes in their work by introducing working methods suited to the topographical peculiarities and soil conditions.

Thanks to the efforts of the workers from different provinces, the patches are being rearranged into the standardized fields, 1,000-1,500 Phyong each, one after another in every part of North Phyongan Province.

Unfortunately, these types of policies, even if successful, are only a third- or fourth-best option for feeding the people.  These policies will never deliver the levels of food and wealth that are possible through opening up the country to investment and trade.  Even without opening up to foreign investment/trade there are a number of policies the DPRK could enact to increase the efficiency of domestic food markets.  It does not take a nobel prize winning economist to realize that the DPRK does not have a comparative advantage in food production.

UPDATE 1 : A valued reader recently made me aware of this informative article by Aidan Foster-Carter on the topic of land-rezoning (April 19, 2001):

TO ENGAGE or keep your distance? The administration of U.S. President George W. Bush has stirred up the Korean peninsula with its aloof, if confused, attitude to North Korea. But if Bush won’t engage, others will. The European Union, keen to be a player on the peninsula, will send Swedish Prime Minister Goran Persson to Pyongyang and Seoul in early May to discuss missiles and mediate.

The goal of engaging North Korea is to force an end to dangerous behaviour. This matter is not merely military. North Korea is now in its sixth year of a food crisis which has cost the lives of at least one million people. Flood and drought may have been the catalysts, but the root problem remains the doubly disastrous mix of rigid planning and the whim of leaders, where pet projects get the lion’s share of resources while less favoured regions and sectors are deprived.

The projects that paved the way for the food crisis included years of the overuse of inorganic fertilizers, which resulted in physical and chemical damage to soil; poorly planned hillside terracing; and the tearing down of forests to plant maize in the mountains. All this on top of the follies of collective farming, restricting private plots and markets.

North Korea is an ecological disaster, with the policies of Kim Jong Il and his father, late leader Kim Il Sung, to blame.

The follies continue. When Persson meets Kim Jong Il, let him ask about land rezoning, a project, more or less, to bulldoze North Korea flat and turn it into farmland. As the official Korean Central News Agency describes it, this is “a grand nature-harnessing work, to level at least 400,000 patches and remove 30,000 kilometres of ridges between rice fields which had been handed down through generations, and repartition them into standardized fields, each covering 1,000-1,500 pyong” (3,300 to 4,950 square metres). In Kim’s plan, 100,000 hectares are due for flattening; 27,000 hectares have already been flattened, “changing their appearance beyond recognition.”

In a speech to the annual Supreme People’s Assembly on April 5, Prime Minister Hong Song Nam made clear the plan was central to the coming year’s priority to “develop agriculture to resolve the food problem of the people.”

The policy was first carried out in marginal farming areas in Kangwon. Kim delivered a speech on the plan in January last year–from the middle of a field. Standing in shiny shoes amid a sea of mud, Kim saw scenic nooks and hillocks bulldozed flat, and rejoiced.

The policy has now spread to Hwanghae, the rice-basket province in the southwest that is crucial to national food supply. On March 25, Vice-Marshal Jo Myong Rok, the country’s top military official, who met President Bill Clinton at the White House last October, led a rally to promote more levelling before rice transplanting begins in May.

The theory: The creation of larger fields will allow the mechanization of agriculture and “free farmers from backbreaking work,” as Kim said in his speech, repeating one of his father’s favourite mantras. But mechanization is a pipe dream when the most hi-tech tool that most workers are armed with is a trowel, and tractors lie rusting for lack of fuel.

THE PROBLEM WITH KIM’S PLAN

The North Korean leader knows this, and has called for “strenuous efforts to repair [them] . . . as has been instructed before”. He has pledged to supply 160 imported tractors, although North Korea is desperately short of foreign exchange and this could hardly help the whole country, just a favoured few.

Kim admits that rezoning won’t raise yields immediately: “It is natural that the fertility of rezoned fields decreases,” he said. So “the soil must be enriched by the application of rich organic fertilizer through a mass movement.”

In fact, Kim has another motivation, and it has nothing to do with yields or labour-saving. “The fields in the Handure Plain . . . have been laid out well in regular shapes . . . . I am greatly satisfied,” he said in last year’s speech. “The plain has been completely transformed . . . . It would be impossible now for a former landowner to find his land, if he were to come with his land register to take his land back. The Handure Plain now looks like the land of a socialist state.” Intriguing that the Dear Leader thinks the landlords who fled in the 1940s, or their children, might come back and claim their own–as has happened in Eastern Europe since communist rule collapsed. Is he afraid?

Worse, in North Korea’s current conditions, the attempt to mechanize agriculture makes no economic sense. Experts including Marcus Noland of the Institute for International Economics in Washington say that Pyongyang should not even try to grow food. Instead, they say, it should seek comparative advantage in exporting light industrial goods, and import grain with the foreign exchange it earns, like South Korea.

As Persson knows, all who aid Pyongyang–and it’s a long list–have the right to insist that policies and practices which killed a million or more North Koreans cease. The EU has added leverage in that it may soon propose the establishment of diplomatic relations with Pyongyang. The UN World Food Programme has its largest operation in the world there, and though other organizations such as Oxfam have pulled out, the WFP and many other non-governmental organizations look to be there for the duration. Yet rather than voice their concerns and insist on tighter conditionality, they have been coy to challenge the irrational policies which caused the crisis and which still go on.

The solution found in China and Vietnam–the development of family farms and markets–offers a good model. In January, Kim hinted that new times demand new methods. In reality, informal markets are the only thing standing between most North Koreans and starvation. But to openly embrace them seems to be too much for Kim Jong Il.

As for land rezoning, it’s a new nadir. The fields of what is now North Korea were shaped by generations of human labour down the centuries, and bulldozing them is comparable to the Taliban’s irreversible destruction of Afghanistan’s prized Buddhas.

What can be addressed is the fact that seven-year-old North Koreans, according to data analyzed by Nicholas Eberstadt of the American Enterprise Institute, are 20 centimetres shorter and 10 kilogrammes lighter than their southern peers. Persson and Kim should have a lot to talk about.

UPDATE 2: I recently obtained a copy of the North Korean book, Songun Banner of Victory. It referred to the land rezoning program in Kangwon in purely revolutionary terms, stating it had “obliterated the last trace of feudal land ownership”.

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North Korea restricts food aid (again)

Friday, July 10th, 2009

According to Fox News:

A spokesman for the World Food program has confirmed to FOX News that on July 3, the emergency relief organization was ordered to limit food deliveries to 57 of the 131 North Korean counties it previously served. At the same time, the agency was told that it must give seven days’ notice of visits to oversee food deliveries at all of its relief sites — a sharp change from the one-day notice previously required under a deal to retain U.S. support for North Korean relief efforts. As a result, the spokesman said, WFP is “reviewing the current terms and conditions for our work” in North Korea, “to ensure that our work and our accountability is not compromised.”

Additional constraints were also slapped on the child relief organization UNICEF in June, according to a spokesman, Chris de Bono. He told FOX News that the regime banned UNICEF from operating in its northerly Ryanggan province, which borders China, and is one of the impoverished country’s poorest areas. UNICEF still operates in 56 other counties across North Korea.

The restrictions make even more dire the food situation in a country where starvation and malnutrition are widespread, even as the Kim regime continues to set off atomic blasts and fire missiles in the direction of Japan and Hawaii.

Furthermore, they once again raise questions about the U.N.’s ability to monitor whatever relief activities that remain in the country. UNICEF’s spokesman told FOX News that only WFP had won the right to 24-hour notification for inspection visits, and that all other U.N. institutions in North Korea have operated with the one-week request limit as a matter of course.

UNICEF has ten international staff and 20 local staffers in North Korea. None of the international staff speak Korean. The agency is budgeted to spend $13 million a year on North Korean operations, principally on food for infants, children and pregnant women, along with emergency vaccination programs, essential medicines and clean water supplies.

But nowhere near that amount of money from international donors is currently available. According to its Web site, UNICEF has received only 10 percent of the total, or about $1.3 million, undoubtedly a result of the North Korean regime’s aggressive pursuit of nuclear weapons. Unless more money is received soon, the UNICEF spokesman said, “it will be difficult to maintain the current level of operations and this will have serious negative consequences for children and other vulnerable people.”

The same funding shortfall applies to the World Food Program, which told FOX News a month ago that donor nations had provided only $75.4 million toward a 2009 goal of $503 million for North Korea, with more than half of that amount — $38.8 million — food aid that was not delivered in 2008.

The only other U.N. agency that has significant operations in North Korea, the United Nations Population Fund, reports that it has received no curtailment in its activities, but it only operates in 11 North Korean counties. It was slated to spend roughly $8.3 million in North Korea between 2007 and 2009, chiefly for birth control and other forms of “reproductive health” and for helping the regime collect population statistics.

Nonetheless, a big question mark still hangs over the North Korean operations of the United Nations Development Program, the U.N.’s major anti-poverty agency, which suspended operations in North Korea in 2007 in the wake of revelations from an independent inquiry that it had wrongfully provided millions in hard currency to the North Korean regime, ignored U.N. Security Council sanctions in passing on dual-use equipment that could conceivably be used in the country’s nuclear program, and allowed North Korean government employees to fill key positions.

Read the full story below:
North Korea Cuts Off More U.N. Relief as Nation Starves
Fox News
George Russell
7/7/2009

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UN World Food Program worried about DPRK

Thursday, July 2nd, 2009

According to Reuters:

Countries appear even less willing to give following North Korea’s second nuclear test in May, Torben Due, the U.N. World Food Programme representative in North Korea, told a news conference in Beijing.

“It’s a very sensitive area. I understand to a certain extent why donors are questioning,” he said. “But my angle is as a humanitarian. Being a humanitarian organisation you should look at the needs of the people. WFP does not engage in the political part of it.”

Due said no new donations had been received following that second test.

An appeal for more than $500 million in food aid has been just 15 percent met, meaning a planned relief operation to reach 6.2 million people has been scaled back to target 2 million.

Due, who lives in Pyongyang and was passing through the Chinese capital, told of the human toll of the state’s struggling economy and international seclusion, with mothers and children stunted by starvation.

“We are now in the middle of the lean season in North Korea, where food supplies are low and it’s a very difficult situation for many people in the country,” he said.

“But more importantly it should be noted that we have a situation where a very large part of the population has been undernourished for 15 or 20 years.”

In some parts of North Korea, some women weigh just 45 kg (99 lb) when they give birth, he added, citing a medical survey.

“The children that survive these conditions will be born with compromised immune systems … and that will contribute to their stunting,” Due said. “It’s a problem which goes from one generation to the next.”

Given the DPRK’s prerogatives, however, the US is not inclined to send food aid.  According to the Associated Press:

The United States said Wednesday it is “very concerned” about the North Korean people but cannot send needed food aid without assurances from their Stalinist government that it will reach them.

“We currently have no plans to provide additional food aid to North Korea and any additional food would have to have assurances that it would be appropriately used,” Kelly told reporters.

“We remain very concerned about the well-being of the North Korean people,” the spokesman said.

“But we are very concerned because we need to have an adequate program management in place, monitoring and access provisions and we don’t have that right now,” he added.

He recalled that in March North Korea expelled non-governmental organization (NGO) monitors in line with its decision to reject US food aid.

“At that time we had about 22,000 metric tonnes in storage there. We’ve learned that the DPRK (North Korean) has distributed this food,” Kelly said. 

I have not seen any food prices from North Korean markets in a while.  If anyone has come across any, please send them to me. 

Recent defectors offer a more nuanced account:

The food supply in the North may have improved slightly in the past two years due to better weather, but Jo said food still is hard to come by. “Even last year, we had a campaign in Kangwon province of getting by with two meals a day. Soldiers sometimes would just get three potatoes a day.”

There is a thriving market economy in North Korea at the local level where the average person buys food staples and consumer goods often made in China. Private plots of land are increasingly used for providing food for one’s family, said Cho Myungchul, a researcher who was an economist in the North before defecting to the South 15 years ago. (Reuters)

Read more here:
U.N. says North Korea food aid has dried up
Reuters
Ben Blanchard
7/1/2009

US cannot send food aid to NKorea despites its concerns
AFP
6/1/2009

Life in North Korea: lies, potatoes and cable TV
Reuters
Jack Kim
7/1/2009

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UNICEF maintains operations in DPRK

Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009

Although the UN World Food Program was asked to leave the DPRK in March, along with US relief workers, the UN children’s fund (UNICEF) is still distributing relief supplies.  Additionally, the UNDP is about to resume activities.  According to Yonhap:

The U.N. children’s agency said Wednesday its humanitarian aid operations in North Korea remain steady amid diplomatic tensions, and that Pyongyang will soon sign an agreement to allow a nationwide nutritional survey.

“The situation with regard to access and monitoring is the same as it has been in the past,” Gopalan Balagopal, UNICEF representative in Pyongyang, said in an email interview.

“UNICEF undertakes regular field visits to monitor progress of work and holds periodic review meetings with counterparts,” he said.

As part of efforts to improve the health of North Korean children and mothers, the agency will soon sign an agreement with the North Korean government to conduct a nutritional survey across the country, set to start in October, Balagopal said.

“We are finalizing a memorandum of understanding with the government shortly for going ahead with a multiple indicator cluster survey, which will have a nutrition component,” he said.

Another aid agency, the U.N. Development Program, is also preparing to restart its program in North Korea after a two-year hiatus, he said. Four UNDP members came to Pyongyang on May 19, and two of them are staying there, keeping “busy with work for restarting their program,” Balagopal said.

UNDP withdrew from Pyongyang in early 2007 after suspicions arose over North Korea’s misappropriation of development funds.

June is a typically lean period in the North in terms of food security, and UNICEF sees increasing numbers of malnourished children in nurseries and hospitals, according to the official.

North Korea’s harvest this year is expected to fall 1.17 million tons short of food needed to feed its 24 million people, according to the Seoul government. Even if the North’s own imports and Chinese aid are counted in, the net shortage will likely surpass 500,000 tons, it said.

Balagopal said his agency has secured about half of its US$13 million target budget for operations in North Korea this year.

He noted there are “some indications” that access to the provinces in the northeast may be restricted to the U.N. agencies. He did not elaborate and said the U.N. will stop its assistance if the access is not guaranteed.

Read the full article here:
UNICEF aid flowing steady in N. Korea: Pyongyang chief
Yonhap
6/3/2009

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DPRK price data

Friday, May 8th, 2009

Chris Green of the Daily NK offers the following price data (click on image to see full size):

prices-5-8-09.jpg

Source:
The Good, the Bad and the Optimistic
Daily NK
Chris Green
5/8/2009

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North Korea’s Refugees: A Window into North Korea

Saturday, May 2nd, 2009

From the Peterson Institute event last week:

As North Korea once again makes headlines with its provocations, the Institute hosted an event April 29, 2009, to present new research by Senior Fellow Marcus Noland based on a recently completed survey of North Korean refugees in South Korea, a companion survey to one done earlier in China by Noland and collaborators. The new survey provides extraordinary insight into the changing pathways to power, wealth, and status within North Korea, as well as the rise of inequality, corruption, and disaffection in the decade since the famine of the 1990s, along with the refugees’ assessments of the regime, its motivations, and its capabilities.

Dr. Noland’s findings can be downloaded in PDF here.

Noland and Haggard conducted a similar survey in China last year.  You can download it here.

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