N.Korea faces food crisis despite reforms-expert
Wed 8 Jun 2005
(Updates with FAO chief's comment, paragraphs 8-10)
By Cho Mee-young and Martin Nesirky
SEOUL, June 8 (Reuters) - North Korea has made limited progress with farm reforms and faces a food crisis this year unless more international aid is delivered, a leading expert on North Korean agriculture said on Wednesday.
Kwon Tae-jin, director of North Korea agricultural studies at the South's state-run Korea Rural Economic Institute, also told Reuters aid to improve farming would be part of a package offered to the communist North after it returns to stalled six-country talks on its nuclear arms programmes.
The North has been striving to boost farm output through incentives and competition, and to stabilise market prices since it introduced economic reforms in 2002, he said.
"Agriculture is at the core of the overall economic changes," he said. The isolated North has made some progress but Pyongyang's firm focus this year on farming is likely to be nothing but an empty gesture if foreign aid fails to materialise.
"From now until this autumn's harvest there will be a crisis, although it will be eased slightly between mid-June and late July when North Korea harvests potatoes, barley and wheat. But from mid-July to late September is the most critical period," he said.
"We can only hope international aid will rise," he added, noting even main ally China had cut food donations to an estimated 200,000-300,000 tonnes from 600,000-700,000 tonnes.
Aid agencies say 6.5 million people are most vulnerable out of a population of 23 million but that others face problems because food distribution has broken down.
"There is need for more food aid for North Korea," Jacques Diouf, director-general of the U.N.'s food and agriculture organisation (FAO), said on Wednesday.
Speaking at a news conference in Stockholm, Diouf said the political environment in North Korea was unfortunately not very favourable for food aid.
"I'm hopeful about a delinkage of political considerations and humanitarian needs," he said.
Little new international aid has reached the North since the middle of last year when Pyongyang started to ask for development aid rather than food handouts. It has now switched tack again, but the international community has not yet responded fully.
A hiatus in North-South dialogue and the six-party nuclear talks has been part of the problem. North and South Korea resumed bilateral talks last month and the North may be considering returning to the multilateral talks.
"As long as the North-South Korea talks continue and there is some development in the six-party talks, not only fertiliser and food aid but also other packages would probably be provided to develop agriculture," said Kwon, who has written and researched extensively on North Korean agriculture.
He said the North had adopted incentives to try to boost agricultural production. For example, collective farms have been subdivided into smaller two- or three-family units.
"The smaller the group is, the more competitive it is and more profits are given to each unit," he said. "It is half way toward one-family farming."
Another scheme has helped increase milk production but overall the picture remains tough, with a growing gap between those who succeed and those who scrape by.
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