North Korea convenes meeting on agricultural stability amid food shortage woes

SEOUL – North Korea held a Cabinet-level meeting to discuss the issue of agricultural stability on Wednesday amid fears of food shortages, state media KCNA reported on Thursday.

The meeting, led by Premier of the Cabinet Kim Tok Hun, saw senior officials come up with “various detailed action plans” to ensure stable agricultural production, the report said.

This comes after leader Kim Jong Un urged officials to engineer

a “fundamental transformation” in agricultural production

during the seventh enlarged plenary meeting of the 8th Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea in February.

South Korean lawmakers, citing intelligence officials, said earlier in March that the North was facing an annual rice shortage of 800,000 tonnes and that the current food shortage situation was caused by the country’s grain policy, distribution problems and the Covid-19 situation.

A recent United Nations report estimated that 60 per cent of the population in North Korea suffered from food insecurity as at the end of 2021, versus 40 per cent prior to the pandemic.

From 2019 to 2021, 41.6 per cent of the population suffered from malnourishment, the report said.

The isolated country is under strict international sanctions over its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programmes, and in recent years, its limited border trade was virtually choked off by self-imposed lockdowns aimed at preventing Covid-19. REUTERS