North Korea’s grain production was estimated to have dropped from 4.64 million tons in 2019 to 4.4 million last year, the Korea Development Institute of the South said in a report published this month. That creates an overall grain shortage of 1.35 million tons this year. North Korea has always suffered annual grain shortages, though the country has tried to fill the gap with trade and international aid, especially from China.
“This year, the North’s food shortage is of a scale that it cannot handle on its own,” said Kwon Tae-jin, the author of the Korea Development Institute report. North Korea must relax its control on market activities and ask for “large-scale food aid” from Beijing to help relieve the food shortage, Mr. Kwon said.
The North also indicated on Wednesday that the party meeting would include a discussion on how to respond to the Biden administration’s recent North Korea policy statements, saying the agenda included “analyzing the current international situation and our Party’s corresponding direction.”
During a summit in Washington last month, President Biden and his South Korean counterpart, Moon Jae-in, agreed to seek “diplomacy and dialogue” with the North, and to build on the 2018 Singapore agreement, which Mr. Trump signed with Mr. Kim. Washington also said it would take a “calibrated” and “practical” approach toward the country and appointed a new special envoy on North Korea.
Mr. Kim’s government has yet to respond to the overtures.
Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/16/world/asia/north-korea-food-shortage.html
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