‘Worst drought in 100 years’ has cut rice production by another 12% in the reclusive state with over 10.5 million people already affected by the hunger crisis

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

North Korea faces further food shortages as production in the country’s main growing region is expected to be cut in half, the United Nations food agency said.

UN representatives visited the country’s breadbasket in North Hwanghae and South Hwanghae provinces on 10 June and found that potato, wheat and barley harvests were at risk of being cut by up to 50% in drought-hit areas.

Wells are dry and reservoir levels are low following meagre rain and snowfall in 2014 and early 2015, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said .

“We don’t have enough information to say if people are starving or not,” said senior FAO official Liliana Balbi . “But the situation is serious. They are on the borderline.”

State media in the isolated country called it “the worst drought in 100 years”.

The latest El Niño weather pattern was responsible for much of the drought, the FAO report said.

The government has also not properly maintained irrigation canals and other farm infrastructure, Balbi said.

Rice production in 2015 is expected at 2.3m tonnes, 12% below 2014’s shrivelled output and considerably lower than the previous five-year average, the FAO said.

Rice plantings face a “severe contraction”, the FAO said, based on preliminary information obtained from inside the reclusive state.

North Korea is under UN sanctions because of its banned nuclear programme and missile launches.

The number of hungry people in North Korea has more than doubled in the past two decades, rising to 10.5 million in 2014 from 4.8 million in 1990, according to a May FAO report .

The country suffered famine in the 1990s and has relied on international food aid since. But support for North Korea has fallen sharply in recent years, because of its curbs on humanitarian workers and reluctance to allow monitoring of food distribution.

Funding for UN agencies in North Korea plunged to less than $50m in 2014, down from $300m in 2004.