The Rural Development Administration (RDA) of South Korea estimated that North Korea will be short of 2,490,000 tons of cereal and that the supply and demand of provisions will be severely affected next year.
The RDA analyzed North Korea’s weather and the current status of blight, fertilizer and agricultural provision situation as a whole and announced the estimated agricultural production volume within North Korea.
North Korea’s total agricultural production volume this year, compared to 4,480,000 tons last year, was presumed at 4,010,000 tons, reduced by 47,000 (11%). It is estimated that 1,530,000 tons of rice, 1,590,000 tons of rice, 15,000 tons of soy products, 47,000 tons of potatoes and sweet potatoes, and 27,000 tons of barley and other agricultural goods will be produced.
A related party of RDA said, “When estimating North Korea’s agricultural demand at around 6,500,000 tons each year, it only amounts to 62% of the 4,010,000 tons demanded this year. Next year, North Korea’s food provision is expected to face severe difficulty.”
Especially in the case of rice, the shortage of fertilizer, the low temperatures of mid-July, and the storm which hit during the rice harvest season in September following the concentrated downpour of August caused severe damages. Further, the flood damage reached 11% of the entire area, so the rice yield is expected to be reduced by 36,000 tons from last year’s 1,890,000 tons.
Corn, due to the frequent rainfall after the drought and flowering season during the initial breeding, decreased by 160,000 tons to 1,590,000 tons of production and the production of corn and soy is also supposed to have decreased to 150,000 tons compared to last year.
Barley, buckwheat and other grains showed a good initial upbringing this year, so the production volume is estimated to have increased by 40,000 to 27,000 tons this year. The provision of seed potatoes, which do not get sick, and other potatoes increased in due to the increase in the fertilizer ration amount to 47,000 tons per unit of density.
RDA analyzed that during North Korea’s farm product upbringing season this year (from April to September), the average temperature was 17.9 degrees centigrade, close to 17.1 degrees centigrade in an average year, but due to the amount of rainfall close to 1,003.1mm, which is 31% more than the annual average 765.7mm, there was an overall difficulty to the upbringing of crops.
A North Korean expert observed, “Due to the flood this year, the overall crop yield was reduced, but the products from North Korea’s paddy fields which are spread all over the place do not count in official statistics. When considering the food support from the outside world, the food shortage is not at a worrisome level.”
A majority of defectors insisted that the agricultural production level from North Korea’s individually cultivated lands (including paddy fields and fields attached to homes) will surpass the cooperative farms’ 30% standard.
