The return of famine to North Korea? An evidence-based assessment of the economic and humanitarian impact of United Nation sanctions

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Hazel Smith(SOAS)

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April 17, 2023

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In 2021 global media reported the return of starvation to North Korea. In 2021 the North Korean government admitted ‘arduous’ food shortages affecting the whole country; recalling the ‘arduous march’ phraseology used by the government to refer to the famine of the 1990s that killed up to half a million people. In 2021, food from domestic production was only enough to feed 20 million of the population of 25.9 million. Misguided DPRK government economic and food security policies provided the enabling conditions for the 2021 food crisis, but the precipitating factor was the expanded United Nations sanctions regime of 2016 and 2017. The humanitarian impact has been catastrophic damage to the country’s farming and food production sector.

DPRK government COVID quarantine measures have resulted in a lack of access to the country since 2020. In the absence of physical access, we do not, however, need to abandon the effort to construct careful, evidence-based knowledge of the causation, extent, and impact of food shortages in the DPRK. Unlike the 1990s, there is a wealth of accessible, reliable socio-economic data and analysis related to North Korean food security. Quantitative and qualitative evidence accrued over now nearly three decades from international organisations working in North Korea allow a fact-based inductive analysis of the North Korean food economy in 2021.

This chapter explains why the DPRK food economy was especially vulnerable to the 2016 and 2017 United Nations sanctions. The chapter assesses supply of food and how this has changed since 2017. It also assesses the ‘demand’ side of food insecurity. This is not ‘effective demand’ as in the economists’ understanding of demand as willingness and ability to purchase a good; it is about the real human demand for the minimum food required to survive. The FAO reported that since 2019 there has not been enough food from domestic food production and recorded imports to feed the population at minimum, survival levels.

In North Korea, the most vulnerable in times of food crisis were those who had little or no family support and/ or relied disproportionately on the government for food. This includes those living in residential homes, prisoners, detainees, the sick, the frail elderly and young children. These social groups are less able to engage in grey area food production and trade compared to adults who have the physical capacity to hustle for food and income. Young children are especially vulnerable to malnutrition-related disease and death. The chapter concludes by showing that the substantial improvements in child nutrition achieved since the famine years of the 1990s are at risk in the food crisis of 2021.
 

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The knowledge base includes a large secondary literature on the North Korean economy and extensive data sets pertaining to the food economy compiled from United Nations and other international organisation documentation, government (including the North Korean government) and non-governmental organisation reporting.

The secondary literature includes extensive scholarly and international policy research on the North Korean famine. Some of the empirical knowledge is only pertinent to the specific circumstances of the 1990s but analytical findings remain relevant for understanding today’s food shortages. The post-Cold War incorporation of North Korea into global capitalist markets and the domestic marketisation that frames contemporary North Korean food security dynamics have also generated a proliferation of professional research.

Primary sources include trade data, which is available through Chinese and other international trade statistics, although official figures, by their nature, do not account for the semi-legal and illegal bilateral trade between the DPRK and China. From the mid-1990s onwards, the international organisations that became resident in the DPRK in response to the famine, including FAO, UNDP, WFP, UNICEF, WHO, IFAD and UNFPA, among others, engaged in systematic socio-economic data collection, most intensively in the agriculture, nutrition, health and education sectors. UN agencies produced and accrued a large amount of data on North Korean food security. Those studies are easily accessible on the web.

UN agencies frequently conducted large data exercises in North Korea. The technical standards of these large research projects were high in terms of execution and analysis. The standard procedure was for the UN agency to employ globally recognised professionals, including agronomists, nutritionists, public health, education, and data specialists as consultants to specific projects. These specialists were brought to North Korea to work in conjunction with the resident international organisation professionals, in cooperation with DPRK technical specialists. The larger research projects, such as the national nutritional surveys, took many months to negotiate (with the DPRK government) prepare, conduct and analyse.

The FAO and the WFP conducted regular in-country assessments of food supply and demand between 1996 and 2019, in conjunction with government, using standard FAO international methodologies. These exercises utilised data supplied by government and the UN organisations resident in country, satellite data and weather pattern analysis and also engaged in direct field surveys. Initial emergency assessments gave way to more detailed analysis as the UN agencies developed and systematised knowledge about the DPRK agricultural economy over time. Since 2020, the FAO and United Nations organisations have not had access to the DPRK although they have continued to publish food security analysis.

In the absence of FAO in-country assessments, South Korea’s Rural Development Administration (RDA) provides useful input into evaluating DPRK food security in 2020 and 2021. RDA data are produced by technical specialists with a record of accurate modelling from outside the country of DPRK agriculture. RDA modelling uses remote sensing and satellite imaging that together can analyse food crop data along with weather conditions, disease/pest damage, and fertilizer distribution. The results from RDA modelling have in the past tallied with patterns observed and analysed by FAO reports, with some differences in the figures because of differences in categorical definitions and time periods. FAO data, for example, is normally presented in agricultural years while RDC data for public consumption is presented in calendar years.

The DPRK government provided limited agricultural production data for marketing years 2019/2020 and 2020/21. This of course needs to be carefully analysed. The US Department of Agriculture also published reports on DPRK agriculture; with data and analysis drawn from FAO and RDA sources.