North Koreans work on a rice field during the harvest outside the North Korean capital of Pyongyang. © 2005 Reuters
Washington Post: Dry winter sparks fears of another food crisis in North Korea
SEOUL — As North Korea heads toward the “barley hump” — the lean season before the rice and corn harvest in the summer — aid agencies are warning that an unusually dry winter is compounding chronic food shortages in the impoverished country.
And while North Korea may no longer be in a state of famine, malnutrition remains such a widespread problem that even slight changes in weather can have an outsized impact on ordinary people’s food supply.
WNU Editor: Every country that has run their agribusiness on the principles of a collective farm have failed .... and sadly for the people of North Korea .... they are probably the last country in the world that is trying to make such a corrupt and insanely stupid system to work.
6 comments:
Farming collectives account for less than 30% of food production in North Korea. All farming practices, from micro, through to industrial are practiced, with micro not surprisingly, being most productive.
North Korea's basic problem as summed up by wiki:
North Korea's sparse agricultural resources limit agricultural production. Climate, terrain, and soil conditions are not particularly favorable for farming, with a relatively short cropping season. Only about 17% of the total landmass, or approximately 20,000 km2, is arable, of which 14,000 km2 is well suited for cereal cultivation; the major portion of the country is rugged mountain terrain.[1]
When Korea was whole, the South fed the North, the North provided the South with manufactured goods.
Population growth and climate change, has made agricultural "juce", impossible for the North other than in the best of years.
"When Korea was whole, the South fed the North, the North provided the South with manufactured goods"
Yeah and? It has been that way since at least the Japanese occupation. It is why Japan put its' nuke program in North Korea.
If you do not have enough farm land the obvious answer is to import like Singapore.
Have something to trade for the food would be good.
I guess trading ballistic missiles, nuke tech and other weapons is not lucrative enough to feed the population and provide the 1% with their cozy lifestyle.
North Korea has lot's of " goods" to trade, other than nuke tech and weapons,
However, the Sanctions Program severly limits that trade, as for example, rare earth's that Japan and US Industry would love to have, China and Russia have lots of.
And as usual, the Rabid NORK bashing, ignores the point. north Korea's food problems are not the " fault" of North Korean Agricultural Programs and Policies.
Just as US problems with food insecurity and malnutrition, arn't due to a lack of food production.
Do nothing
Trade Embargo
War
***
If you do not want to go to war and you do not want to do nothing, then how can you change things or not be affected by things form a dictatorship?
You do nothing they are still repressing people and still scheming.
You might throw "engagement" into that continuum.
Would that worked with NAZI Germany?
We are engaging with Cuba.
When are the political prisoners going to be freed, while state department people and NGOs are dialoguing, managing the process, jawboning?
China & Russia are huge markets compared to North Korea. How is that access to 40% of the world markets or 60% of the worlds markets is not enough for some nations?
Take Cuba. It has access to Europe Canada and most of the rest of the world. that should be enough for it to engage in trade and prosper. Yet we are told because it does not have access to one market, it cannot thrive.
As ususal, Aizino, you completely miss the point,
Which is no surprise, you live in a nation that makes political, economic and military decisions based, not in science, fact or statistics, but instead beliefs.
It's probably the key reason for the US decline.
You might want to actually read some of the Sanctions and Trade Regulations the US has enacted against Cuba and how they can and are applied agaist Foreign Corporations and Busnessmen.
Do I know as much as you know about it?
Probably not.
But European companies have built hotels there. The Russians supported them for 30 years. Sanctions or no sanctions they had enough time to build and to trade with other communists countries.
There has to be some reason the sanctions are there. The Castro brothers seem to do rather well with their haciendas and other loot. The Ladies in White and the prisoners in the jails point out to why we would be having an embargo.
Are the Ladies in White some evil american plot?
If Russian, China, North Korea the eastern bloc is not a big enough trading bloc, maybe there is something wrong with the political and economic policies of Cuba?
The total # of communists countries able & willing to trade with Cuba was very large in terms of population, total percentage of countries in the world and in terms of GDP.
We traded with Venezuela while they were trading with Cuba (& outright supporting it). Otherwise I do not know what all those CITGO gas stations are doing in the U.S.
Citgo Petroleum Corporation (or Citgo) is an American refiner, transporter and marketer of transportation fuels, lubricants, petrochemicals and other industrial products. The company is owned by PDV America, Inc., an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A., the national oil company of Venezuela. The company has its headquarters in the Energy Corridor area of Houston, Texas.
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