Worsening food shortage

North should accept South's humanitarian aid offer

North Korea faces a worsening food shortage due to adverse weather conditions, prompting an urgent need for food assistance to the impoverished and isolated country. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has painted a dire picture of the food situation in the North, saying that four out of every 10 North Koreans urgently need food aid.

The FAO reported that the North's crop production this year will drop to its lowest level in five years due mainly to drought. Last month's Typhoon Lingling and the spread of African swine fever (ASF) have also negatively affected the crop yields.

"An estimated 10.1 million people (40 percent of the population) are food insecure and urgently require food assistance," the FAO said. It called for action over the next three months to ease the effects of prolonged dry conditions on food security. It included North Korea among nine countries where food security is at high risk.

The North's food shortage issue is nothing new. It has continued to suffer chronic shortages since the 1990s. But the international community needs to pay special attention to this problem as it comes amid the stalled nuclear talks between Pyongyang and Washington.

More noticeable is that the North rejected South Korea's offer of 50,000 tons of rice aid in September. The reason was because of a joint military exercise between the South and the U.S. It is hard to understand that Pyongyang turned down the humanitarian aid proposal for political reasons.

We urge the North to accept the offer sooner rather than later in order to help feed starving North Koreans. It would be better for Pyongyang to separate humanitarian assistance from the denuclearization negotiations and other geopolitical conditions.
Pyongyang has also refused Seoul's proposal to conduct a joint survey and quarantine effort against the highly contagious ASF which has been hitting the North since May and also the South since September.

The North also disappointed South Koreans because it allowed no spectators, no live TV coverage and no reporters for a bizarre South-North football match to qualify for the 2022 Qatar World Cup in an empty stadium in Pyongyang, Oct. 15.

Those developments are a serious setback for President Moon Jaein who has pushed for active engagement with the North since his inauguration to speed up the peace process on the Korean Peninsula. The once-rapid inter-Korean detente and reconciliation has ground to a halt since the "no deal" summit between North Korean leader Kim Jongun and U.S. President Donald Trump in Hanoi in February.

The Kim regime should not try to delay its denuclearization any further. It must not be engrossed in calling for sanctions relief before making any real progress in nuclear disarmament. Instead of test-firing short-range ballistic missiles, the North should make efforts to mitigate the food shortage and improve living conditions for its people.