The drought now gripping North Korea is not yet a “catastrophe,” a U.S. agricultural expert said Thursday, suggesting the communist nation may be exaggerating the situation.
The North’s official Korean Central News Agency said earlier this week that the “worst drought in 100 years” is “causing great damage” to the country, adding that about 30 percent of rice paddies across the country are “parching up.”
The report came days after the South’s unification ministry forecast last week that the North’s grain production will likely to drop by up to 20 percent this year from 2014 if a shortage of rainfall continues until early next month.
“We need to be a bit cautious before anticipating a new disaster,” said Randall Ireson in an article carried by the website 38 North, citing previous examples in which the North warned of a disaster, but the situation later improved.
“Early last year, the DPRK government also warned about a drought crisis, but later rains allowed a recovery — while rice production fell about 10 percent from 2013, maize production hit a new high,” he said.
In 2012, the North also claimed another “worst in a century,” but ultimately a harvest of 4.92 million tons of grain equivalent, which is consistent with surrounding years, ensued, the expert said.
“The KCNA article claims that no rain has fallen in South and North Hwanghae provinces. That is hyperbole,” he said, adding that precipitation data show a total of 181 mm at Haeju and 102 mm at Sariwon since March. “While substantially below the historical average (330 mm for Haeju, unavailable at Sariwon), it is hardly ‘no rain,'” he said.
Rain has also fallen in the last few days in what could be the beginning of an annual monsoon season, he said.
“So while one has a right to be concerned, it’s not yet a catastrophe. If the rains of the last few days presage the arrival of the monsoon, then all may turn out fine. If there’s no change in the next couple of weeks, then we should start to worry,” he said. (Yonhap)
