[caption id="attachment_2893" align="aligncenter" width="1014"]
Picture: Collected[/caption]
GFMM desk: North Korea's crop is predicted to be worse than normal. There is already a severe food crisis in the country. A supervisory team made the report.
Using satellite imagery, Swiss-based Geoglum said drought had an effect on the area known as the "cereal bowl".
The UN says four out of ten North Koreans need food assistance and crop production is at its lowest level in five years. The crisis has worsened due to international sanctions on North Korea's weapons program.
In May food rations - which feed about 70% of the North Korean population - were cut from 550g (19.5 oz) to just 300g per person following poor results in this year's early harvest.
The country's main harvest in the southern provinces of South and North Hwanghae and South Pyongyang was complete but was estimated to have produced a below-average quantity of crops, Geoglam said.
This was due to "irregular rainfall and low reservoir levels during the summer", the organization said, adding that North Korea's overall food situation was not expected to improve.
[caption id="attachment_2894" align="aligncenter" width="1014"]
Picture: Collected[/caption]
North Korea experienced severe droughts in spring and summer, and in September the country was hit by Typhoon Lingling, which flooded farmland.trying to improve food production
In September the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said poor rice and maize harvests had left more than 10 million people in urgent need of assistance.
The country has also had to cope with a regional outbreak of swine fever in its pig herd, leading to reduced pork production.
Earlier this year a UN team found families surviving "on a monotonous diet of rice and kimchi most of the year, eating very little protein", according to a report by the World Food Programme. The report said some families were eating protein only a few times a year.
China and other countries have already provided food aid to North Korea so far this year.
However, North Korea has refused to accept 50,000 tons of rice from South Korea. This is because the North's nuclear program is linked to the postponement negotiations between Pyongyang and the United States.
North Korea is regularly suffering from food shortages. Millions of people are thought to have died in severe famine across the country in the 1990s.
Source: BBC
SZK
Comment Now