Food Supplies, Prices Stabilize Amid Slow Recovery of N. Korea’s Markets

The good news for North Koreans who’ve been written off the state’s dole is that food prices have mostly stabilized. The bad news is that quite a few of them have lost ground in their unending race against the Reaper:

A source inside North Korea explained, “Since the redenomination, some people have dropped from ‘middle income’ to ‘poor.’ As a result, demand for corn has increased, and that is the reason why corn prices have gone up. Some people still eat rice; however, many of those who used to eat rice are now feeding their families on corn.”

“Because of the planting battle, market hours were made shorter, but the market is running smoothly and food prices are stabilizing.”

However, the source conceded that the food security of senior citizens with no family support and homeless children seems to be very bad. The source said some of these people are indeed dying of malnutrition and disease, though not outright starvation. Daily NK]

It’s significant that this wave of misery is lapping at the gates of Pyongyang, where the Daily NK reports that people are selling their homes to buy food.

Yes, that’s right. People sell houses in North Korea, or to be precise, they sell the right to live in a house, and then “arrange” to have the new residence permit recorded with a cooperative local official.

Note also that Good Friends has reported widespread starvation in North Korea, or that it is on the brink of another famine, a claim that the Daily NK’s sources characterize as exaggerated, while conceding some mortality among the elderly. Like the Daily NK, I’ve also concluded in retrospect that some of Good Friends’s reports appear to have been exaggerated, although it’s obviously difficult to be certain who’s right here.