U.N. World Food Program Reports Skyrocketing Food Prices in Pyongyang

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) warned today that time is running out to avert looming food shortages and a potential humanitarian crisis in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) following confirmation of a critically low national harvest stemming in part from last year’s heavy August floods.

“The food security situation in the DPRK is clearly bad and getting worse,” said Tony Banbury, the World Food Programme’s Regional Director for Asia. “It is increasingly likely that external assistance will be urgently required to avert a serious tragedy.” [World Food Program Press Release]

Note that the WFP does not use the word “famine.” That’s probably a nod to the tender sensitivities of the regime, but the effect is to cause some donors to wonder why this year is different from any other. There’s widespread “hunger” every year in North Korea. But this year is different, even if the rather obsequeous Banbury won’t say why:

Prices of staple foods in the capital Pyongyang have doubled over the past year and are now at their highest recorded levels since 2004. Rice now costs around 2,000 won/kg (up from 700-900 won/kg in April 2007) and maize costs around 600 won/kg (350 won/kg in April 2007). Drastic price rises for pork (now around 5,500 won/kg), potatoes (5,000 won/kg) and eggs (200 won/piece) make these commodities a luxury for most people in DPRK. An average monthly worker’s salary is approximately 6,000 won/month.

I’m no economist, but if market prices are rising where people previously depended on state rations and used the market as a supplement, then demand must be rising faster than supply.

“The rapid rise in the real price of food for persons living in the DPRK confirms WFP’s fears that the DPRK may suffer deeper and more widespread hunger this year,” said Jean-Pierre de Margerie, WFP Country Director in Pyongyang. “Now it takes a third of a month’s salary just to buy a few days worth of rice. Families and especially vulnerable persons will suffer from lack of access to food, eat fewer meals and have a poorer diet, increasing their vulnerability to diseases and illness.”

These are the first independent reports that confirm, albeit with circumstantial evidence, what Good Friends has been telling us for about the last month — this year, even the elite are having a hard time getting by.

The L.A. Times follows on with more details, reporting that food prices in Pyongyang have risen 25% in the last three weeks. That would be about when Good Friends says that the regime suspended food rations in the capital, although the L.A. Times report implies that the suspension may still not be complete:

“Local officials are openly asking us for support, something we’ve never see before,” said the head of the World Food Program’s North Korean operation, Jean-Pierre de Margerie, in a telephone interview from Pyongyang. “They are telling us that they are going to have to suspend distribution in some places because there simply is not enough food in the system.” [Bruce Wallace, L.A. Times]

So far, the people in the capital and other areas where NGO’s have access don’t appear to be starving. They’re dipping into their savings to buy food in areas surrounding Pyongyang, which will add to the inflationary pressure on those areas.

The U.N. agency says it has no reports of people starving, though it has been barred since 2006 from northeastern regions where shortages are usually most severe. De Margerie added that high fuel costs had severely curbed North Korea’s ability to truck food supplies to non-food-producing regions of the country.

On balance: there is no evidence that a famine has begun, that there are widespread migrations of food refugees, or that people are dying of starvation, a least not in unusually large numbers by North Korean terms. There is evidence to suggest that a famine is likely in northern and eastern regions this year, that hunger could also be felt in the capital and among the military without a massive influx of outside assistance, and that hunger is affecting industrial production and next year’s crops. All of which stands in curious contrast to this fact:

The North Korean government has made no request to widen the U.N. agency’s existing effort that is feeding or supplementing the nutrition of about 1 million people in the country of 23 million.

The regime is betting that its elite will tolerate this turn of events for a few months, until China bails them all out. As for the rest of the population, Andrei Lankov is probably spot-on:

“They believe if they ask for food aid it will show their weakness and they are probably right, so they have decided just to take the blow,” said Andrei Lankov, a North Korean specialist at Seoul’s Kookmin University. “They are saying we will do it without you. We will always find enough money for cognac for Dear Leader, even if a few peasants have to die.”

So far, the people in Pyongyang are worried, but surviving. The morale situation appears to be more volatile in far-flung and remote areas where unrest would also be easier to contain.