Food Crisis Update

It may be the first good news I’ve ever reported on the subject:  rice prices have actually fallen slightly in some of  North Korea’s most vulnerable areas, as the Daily NK reports in persuasive detail.  There’s even a city-by-city price chart.  The price drop is modest — roughly 25 to 30% — but this is the time of year when you’d expect food to be in very short supply, with rapid price increases,  if we were  headed for an imminent famine.  One factor may be the government’s increased distribution of rations in the border regions, which I’d previously noted.  There’s little question that  Pyongyang would  have a political motive for this, but it’s always been my  hope that foreign and domestic political pressure would force the regime to reallocate its priorities in favor of feeding the people.  If that’s happened, then that’s a good thing. 

Next, you have to wonder why food prices are falling.  Several possibilities:

• The price drop is speculative, rather than an indication of improved supply.  Prices rose after October’s nuclear test.  Perhaps North  Korea’s rather sophisticated market has taken stock of  China’s spotty compliance with 1718 and the resolution’s humanitarian exemptions.  They realize that 1718 won’t curtail the supply of food.
• China and South Korea have increased their aid and some of the aid is trickling down to the people.   That would be  good news, even if it’s also bad diplomacy.
• The regime has simply reallocated food from other areas to the far North.  Recent reports suggest that the food situation in Pyongyang has gotten worse, not better.  That would be mildly good news because (a) it would mean that more people will survive, and (b) that because of pressures on the regime, the elite must now share the proles’ misery.  No one celebrates another person’s hunger, but so far, I haven’t heard that people are starving in Pyongyang, and things in North Korea will not be better for most of the people unless the privileged class feels some of the pain, too. 
• It’s just ordinary fluctuation from supply and demand.  Higher prices last fall created an incentive to import more food from outside, or to release and sell more food that North Koreans had hoarded.

Another unknown here  is the  influence of local officials, who  tend to be less indifferent to the suffering of people in their own regions.  Recent reports of a crackdown on corruption, trading, and nonconformity in general — including even the arrest of one official for dope dealing — suggest changes of management, at least in Hoeryong. 

I close with two last questions.  First,  you have to wonder how many people can afford even  the slightly lower prices.  Second, I strongly question how a modest improvement in the food supply justifies North Korea actually exporting two tons of rice to the South, something that’s absolutely indefensible unless everyone’s needs are being met in the North (or unless they traded for a greater amount of corn).  Given the grave reports that circulated about the food supply all last year,  a sudden end to the food crisis  seems highly unlikely.  It never fails to amaze me how the South Korean press can simply echo a ploy like this without asking the obvious questions it raises.