| |
 |
|
Menu |
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
| |
News Articles
‘Food shortage in North Korea could deteriorate into widespread
famine’
by Jane Cooper |
[July 10, 2005]
North Korea’s chronic food shortage could deteriorate into
widespread famine similar to the mid-1990s when an estimated 1
million North Koreans died from starvation, according to aid
agencies.
Aid workers attribute the dire situation to cuts in the North’s
government-provided ration, the inability of the urban poor to
buy food at market prices, and the international community’s
reluctance to give aid. This is compounded during the summer
when malnutrition typically spikes as food runs out before the
harvest begins in September.
Tim Peters, founder of aid agency Helping Hands Korea, said that
“enlarging pockets of areas” are again experiencing famine, and
in the northeastern city of Cheongjin, the food shortage is
worse than 10 years ago.
“It’s backpedaling to the situation of the 1990s,” Peters told
The Korea Herald.
He said urban areas are the worst-affected. Farmers are able to
cultivate a private patch whereas city dwellers cannot. Through
a network of North Korean refugees in China, Peters learned that
during the planting season in May, city government offices were
emptied as workers were mobilized to work on farms.
According the United Nations World Food Program, those living in
urban areas -- 70 percent of the population -- are heavily
dependent on the government’s Public Distribution System of
cereals. A further cut to 200 grams is expected (less than
one-third of the minimum calorie intake recommended by the World
Health Organization).
For more food, the North Koreans have to look to the
marketplace. The WFP -- the largest humanitarian organization in
North Korea -- says that since the change in 2002 from a
state-planned economy to a market economy, food prices
skyrocketed past what the average wage-earner can afford. The
WFP estimates that in the last year the market price of rice has
gone up 300 percent to about 750-800 won a kilogram.
With the average North Korean wage being 2,500 won a month, most
can afford only 3 kilograms a month, putting rice out of reach
for most North Koreans.
Peters’ conversations with North Korean refugees in China
support these estimates. He met a woman last August who had
crossed the border to seek medical attention for her daughter’s
heart condition. She told him that her husband worked in a
factory and earned 1,500 won ($1.20 at that time) a day and
their family of four lived mostly of corn meal which cost 200
won per kilogram. As they lived in a semi-rural area, they did
not receive any government distribution, but they kept two pigs,
chickens and dogs which they would sell so that they could buy
more corn. They were able to eat three times a day on a diet of
corn meal, kimchi and doenjang (soy bean paste). In their
community they were considered well-off.
The food shortages, particularly for the urban poor, are
reaching crisis point as international aid which North Korea has
heavily relied upon has dropped dramatically.
The U.N. World Food Program is struggling to raise funds. This
year the WFP put out an appeal to raise 504,000 metric tons to
feed the most desperate 6.5 million people. The United States
government -- the largest donor to the WFP -- pledged 50,000
tons in June, but the WFP still needs 200,000 tons. Despite the
international donations, including those from the South Korean
government, the WFP fears that if no more aid comes, about 5.2
million people will be left in a desperate situation.
“Usually I’m optimistic by nature, but the situation is very
grim at the moment,” said Peters who has been working with North
Korean refugees for 9 years.
His Seoul-based nongovernmental organization currently supports
a bakery in China that produces high-nutrition buns which are
distributed in North Korea, by North Koreans at the grass-roots
level, to schoolchildren and orphans. This is more effective
than handing out raw grain as cooking fuel is expensive he said.
This operation produces 48,000 buns a month and reaches about
1,600 people a day.
“It’s indicative of what little grass-roots organizations and
‘mom-n-pop’ NGOs can do. We can make a difference,” Peters said.
>> Go back to main News Article page
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
|
|
