North Korea, hit by its worst drought in more than 15 years, is facing severe food shortages, said the UN, calling for urgent food imports to stop children from going hungry.
International food aid, especially from South Korea and the United States, has been drastically cut over the past decade amid soaring tensions over the country’s nuclear arms and missile programs, reported Agence France-Presse.
"Immediate interventions are needed to support affected farmers and prevent undesirable coping strategies for the most vulnerable, such as reducing daily food intakes," Martin added.
The North has periodically been hit by famine in recent decades, with hundreds of thousands of people dying in the mid-to-late 1990s during a period known in the country as the Arduous March.
Even in good years, more than 40 percent of the population is categorized by the UN as undernourished.
But rainfall in the first half of this year has been far below the levels of 2001, when a particularly bad drought caused the country’s cereal crop production to hit unprecedented lows.
In some key agricultural provinces, rainfall from April to June was 50 per cent below average.
Mismanagement is widely blamed for food shortages in an impoverished country, while critics point to the nation’s vast expenditure on its nuclear and missile programs, at the cost of investment in agriculture.
Frequent floods and droughts, as well as a lack of quality soil, seeds, fertilizer and equipment, are also to blame.
Production of 2017 early season crops has plunged by over 30 percent, from the previous year’s level of 450 000 tonnes to 310, 000 tonnes, the FAO report said.