North Korea: Kim Jong-un opens a meeting on agriculture, Seoul evokes a possible famine
Rice plantations in the suburbs of the city of Kaesong, North Korea.
Ed JONES / AFP
Text by: RFI Follow
2 mins
Kim Jong-un himself opened a party meeting this Sunday, February 26 to provide a response to the "urgent" agricultural problems facing North Korea.
Information that may worry as the South Korean authorities evoke a possible mass starvation.
Impossible to confirm these claims, while the country has been completely reclusive for more than three years, but the attention paid by the regime to food issues shows that North Korea is going through a difficult phase.
Advertisement
Read more
With our correspondent in Seoul,
Nicolas Rocca
“
An important and urgent mission.
The words of the
Rodong Sinmun
, the Party's official newspaper, are an admission of a situation that worries those in power.
The food security of the 25 million North Koreans is at the heart of much speculation as imports have fallen drastically during these three years of isolation of the country.
"
Not only is agricultural production affected by a lack of fertilizers and pesticides from abroad, but the agricultural market is suffering from the absence
of food imports
and workers are seeing their income drop due to the economic problems linked to the closing of the borders of North Korea
”, analyzes Peter Ward, researcher at Kookmin University and specialist in the North Korean economy.
► Also to listen:
Three years of closure, how to learn about North Korea?
40% of the population malnourished
To solve the food crisis, Kim Jong-un pleads for a more systematic application of state instructions by farmers.
But in North Korea, according to Peter Ward, there is also informal agriculture: “
People have found ways to live without imports, there is a large segment of agriculture that exists outside the state.
People cultivate on the mountain slopes or in their garden.
The state has decided to put in place bans, but not necessarily to enforce them.
»
It is difficult to establish a clear diagnosis of the food situation in North Korea, even if it is certain that the situation is more precarious in the countryside.
In 2022, the World Food Program estimated that 40% of North Korea's population was malnourished.
Newsletter
Receive all the international news directly in your mailbox
I subscribe
Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application
North Korea
Kim Jong Un
Health and medicine
Feed