North Korea faces serious food shortages after drought ‘wreaks havoc’

[yuiyoshida]

North Korean soldiers bring water to a corn field in Kohyon-ri, North Korea in the country’s Hwangju County earlier this year. Pic: AP.

When North Korea’s strictly controlled media admits that all is not flawless under Great Leader Kim Jong-un’s regime, then onlookers know that things have taken serious turn.

Such seemed to be the case again this summer, when Voice of America reported that the Hermit Kingdom’s state media admitted the country’s agriculture has suffered “great damage” at the hands of its “worst drought in 100 years”.

This was backed up by a UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) update earlier this month, that says the drought is “wreaking havoc” on the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s (DPRK) rice, maize, and soy bean crops. On top of that, the totalitarian nation’s potato production has sunk to 20 percent of last year’s total, while barley has plunged 32 percent.

Yet, the truly harrowing numbers don’t lie in the national stats, but with household totals. To be specific, household rations fell from last year’s allotment of 410 grams per person per day to 310 grams, and then again to a dismal 250 — less than half of the FAO’s minimal 600 grams per person per day benchmark.

http://asiancorrespondent.com/135713/north-korea-faces-serious-food-shortages-after-drought-wreaks-havoc/

[clarice]

1. I feel so sorry for those people...what they need over there is....

good old Democracy!

[treestar]

2. And the Kims will use it to get the West to give them food

anything rather than use the riches they stole from that country to feed the people in it.

[oneshooter]

3. Food that will be used to feed the military and their families.

Full bellies do not revolt.

[treestar]

5. True enough. It's that in crowd that would be able to do the revolting

the military and the higher ups. I read a book that predicts them as the best way out of the Kim bullshit. In time they will want the perks of a free society rather than the perks of living in Pyongyang.

[DetlefK]

4. Rice and maize are especially thirsty crops.

[ryan_cats]

6. We call it corn. n/t

[DetlefK]

7. Maize is closer to the original word.

In Germany it's called "Mais". "Corn" is too ambiguous, as "Korn" in German means "grain".

In Eastern Europe and Austria and some parts of Germany it's called "kukuruz" (or terms that sound closely like this, like "kukuriza" or "gukruz&quot . It's probably derived from the romanian word "cucuruz" for "pine cone".

[ryan_cats]

8. I reject Mazola's exploitation of Native Americans

I reject Mazola's exploitation of Native Americans and their alliance with MIC.

[1939]

11. Prior to trans-atlantic trade

Wheat and other grain crops were also known as "corn" in English.

[KamaAina]

9. Especially rice

it is mind-boggling that we continue to grow rice in northern California in the middle of our punishing drought. This is made possible by the fact that the water district that serves the two main rice-growing counties has historic rights to about a third of the entire flow of the Sacramento River.

[DetlefK]

10. California should declare eminent domain to regain control of the main water-sources.

[KamaAina]

12. Oooooh! Interesting!

I'm not sure how the courts would view that, though, since eminent domain has hitherto always involved real property (land).