North Korea’s tense food situation
By Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein
As usual, it’s very difficult to get a read on the domestic availability and production of food in North Korea. Nonetheless, the overarching picture continues to be grim, and the fears over the Omicron-variant seems to be making it all worse. This is also what the South Korean government assesses:
The cost of groceries and daily necessities in North Korea is estimated to be rapidly increasing in the face of a prolonged border lockdown to stave off the COVID-19 pandemic, Seoul’s unification ministry said Monday.
The North has imposed a strict border control since last year, which is believed to have taken a toll on its economy already hit by crippling sanctions.
“North Korea is experiencing chronic food shortages with around 1 million tons of foods falling short every year,” ministry spokesperson Lee Jong-joo told a regular press briefing. “As the coronavirus-driven border lockdown has prolonged, it is likely to be having difficulties in securing necessary foods from abroad.”
The North was seen preparing to reopen its land border with China, with South Korea’s spy agency estimating its cross-border rail services could resume as early as in November. But the spread of the omicron variant is apparently delaying the reclusive regime’s planned border reopening.
“Though we do have limits in having access to accurate information, the government’s estimation … is that the volatility of foods and necessities prices is growing (in North Korea) and some items are witnessing a rapid price hike,” Lee said.
Yet, referring to experts’ assessments the North’s crop output could improve this year due to better weather conditions, she said the government will continue monitoring its situation in line with a review on the need for a humanitarian cooperation.
(Source: “Prices of food, daily necessities estimated to be rapidly soaring in N. Korea: gov’t,” Yonhap News, 6/12/21.)
The last paragraph here is a crucial caveat, as North Korea’s food production is highly volatile and dependent on weather conditions. Over the past few years, there have sometimes been reason to suspect that the state has exaggerated the direness of its food situation rather than the other way around.
Nonetheless, it’s clear that the prolonged border closure is hitting hard against the economy as a whole. There have been several reports over the past few months indicating that Pyongyang might soon unseal the border, but no major changes seem to have taken place. I’m not sure that means those reports were necessarily wrong. Rather, the government may well have planned to ease the border lockdown at several points only to back down in the face of a new development, be it Covid-19 spreading in China’s northeast, or the rise of the Omicron variant.
It’s difficult to see what could really change if the government continues to both refuse to let the outside world assist in a vaccination campaign, and at the same time responds to each new wave or variant of the virus by further tightening or extending the border lockdown. It’s not a sustainable strategy but given the regime’s fear of the havoc that a significant spread of the virus could wreak in society, given its very fragile health system, it might not change anytime soon.