North Korea’s top leaders seem like struggling because the country’s chronic food shortages worsen.
Hermit Kingdom officials are preparing to debate the “very essential and urgent task” of formulating a “competent agricultural policy” at an upcoming meeting of the ruling Staff’ Party. International observers consider the COVID-19 pandemic has worsened the already meager food supply in the isolated country.
While anecdotal reports indicate that North Koreans are ravenous to death, experts say there are no signs of mass deaths or starvation yet.
The party meeting could also be geared toward boosting support for North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who’s resolutely moving forward along with his nuclear weapons program despite intense US pressure and sanctions.
“Kim Jong Un cannot sustainably develop his nuclear program unless he fundamentally solves the food problem, because popular support shall be shaken,” said Lim Eul-chul, a professor at Kyungnam University’s Institute of Far Eastern Studies in Seoul, South Korea. “The meeting is being convened to solidify internal unity while bringing together ideas to unravel the food shortage.”
![Worker in North Korea](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/NYPICHPDPICT000007228345.jpg?w=1024)
![Rice farmers in North Korea](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/NYPICHPDPICT000007228344.jpg?w=1024)
![Rice farmers in North Korea](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/NYPICHPDPICT000007228322.jpg?w=1024)
An prolonged plenary session of the PPR Central Committee is scheduled for the top of February. The party’s powerful Politburo previously said that “a turning point is required to dynamically promote radical changes in agricultural development.”
Experts can only speculate in regards to the exact situation in the north, where borders have been closed in the course of the pandemic. North Koreans have suffered from food shortages and famine for many years. Famine in the mid-Nineteen Nineties is believed to have killed a whole lot of 1000’s.
Koo Byoungsam, a spokesman for the South Korean Unification Ministry, said an unknown variety of North Koreans died of starvation, but said the issue was not as serious because the mid-Nineteen Nineties famine of Soviet aid and mismanagement.
![North Korean Rocket](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/02/NYPICHPDPICT000007013132.jpg?w=1024)
The present food shortage is due more to distribution problems than not having enough grain, South Korean ministry officials said. Food insecurity worsened as authorities tightened controls over the private sale of grain in the markets, as a substitute attempting to limit grain trade to state-owned enterprises.
With Postal Wires