PYONGYANG: North Korea has been adversely hit by food shortage, which North Korea blames the shortfall on a combination of bad weather and “barbaric” international sanctions, media reports said. Critics argue that the North is simply trying to use the situation to undermine support for sanctions without addressing the nuclear issues that led to them in the first place or the government’s systemic economic problems.
Potential donors, meanwhile, face the old but still controversial question: should the world help a government that seems determined not to help its own people?
Kim, the ambassador to the U.N., said record-high temperatures, drought and flooding last year shaved more than 500,000 tons off of the 2018 harvest from the nearly 5 million tons produced in 2017. His statement was released just days ahead of Kim Jong Un’s Feb. 27-28 summit with President Donald Trump in Hanoi.
He said North Korean farmers have been hamstrung by “dreadful” restrictions on imports of everything from tractors, harvesters and sowing machines to chemical fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides and imports of refined petroleum. He also claimed that sanctions, or the fear of running afoul of them, are blocking or delaying legitimate assistance from possible donors and international organizations.
Humanitarian assistance from the U.N. agencies is “terribly politicized,” he said, and sanctions against North Korea are “barbaric and inhuman.”
North Korea claims it is now “channeling all its efforts” to importing food and increasing the output of early and basic crops such as wheat and barley in coming months. Even if Pyongyang achieves its targets of importing 200,000 tons of food and producing 400,000 tons of early crops, supplies will still fall short by 1.486 million tons.
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