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N. Korea begins autumn harvest amid food shortage
By Shim Sun-ah
SEOUL, Sept. 18 (Yonhap) -- North Korea has begun this year's fall harvest, its state-run radio said Thursday, amid reports that the country is suffering from a serious food shortage.
Aid groups have said the North faces its worst food shortage since the late 1990s, when up to 3 million people are believed to have starved to death, in part due to major flooding in 2007.
Pyongyang has so far relied on international food aid to help feed its population of 23 million.
"Rice harvest has begun in farm villages of South Hwanghae Province," the North's Korean Central Broadcasting Station reported.
"Beginning with the Saegil cooperative farm in Sinchon County, rural villages and cooperative farms in Jaeryong and Yonbaek fields have launched a rice harvest battle," the broadcast said.
Farms were decorated with large signboards and banners bearing slogans calling for all-out efforts to reap a bumper crop, the report said.
The U.N. World Food Program recently appealed to international donors to provide an additional US$60 million in emergency aid to North Korea. It said the North could slip back into famine without additional aid worth about US$500 million in the next 15 months.
North Korea's grain crop last year reportedly amounted to 4 million tons, 1 million tons short of what the country needs to feed its population.
The U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization told U.S.-based Radio Free Asia last month that the North will harvest a half million tons less than last year due to shortages of chemical fertilizer.
sshim@yna.co.kr
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