Agriculture and Food Security

Category: Economy Key figures: N/A

Summary

The DPRK’s agricultural system is a centrally planned, state-controlled sector that has chronically failed to meet the nation’s food needs, particularly since the 1991 collapse of Soviet economic support. North Korea’s agriculture is organized around collective farms (cooperatives) and state farms, where land is collectively owned and production quotas are set by the state; individual private farming is severely restricted and the produce heavily taxed or confiscated. The country possesses limited arable land (roughly 20% of total territory, concentrated in river valleys), poor soil quality in many regions, limited access to chemical fertilizers and modern machinery, and a climate that limits the growing season. These structural constraints, combined with state mismanagement, the diversion of resources to the military and nuclear program, recurrent natural disasters (droughts and floods), and the post-Soviet energy collapse that eliminated mechanized agriculture, have made the DPRK chronically dependent on food imports and vulnerable to famine. The 1994–1998 famine killed hundreds of thousands to over a million people and revealed the bankruptcy of the planned agricultural system. Even after the famine, food insecurity has persisted; the regime prioritizes the military, the state apparatus, and Pyongyang’s privileged population over rural areas and ordinary citizens. Food distribution is controlled through the public distribution system (PDS), which allocates rations based on songbun political classification and employment; when the PDS fails (as it frequently does), citizens resort to informal jangmadang markets, which the regime alternately tolerates and suppresses.

Collective and State Farm System

North Korean agriculture is organized into cooperative farms (협동농장, hyeopdong nongjang) and state farms, with no private land ownership. Cooperative farms are theoretically managed by peasant collectives but are in practice tightly controlled by the state through party cells and local officials who set production quotas, control inputs, and extract surplus for the state. State farms are directly state-owned and operated, typically producing specialized crops or serving as model institutions. The system inherited from the Soviet model emphasizes centralized planning, collective production, and the subordination of agricultural output to state priorities. During the collectivization process carried out between 1953 and 1958, the regime forcibly reorganized peasant holdings into these collective structures, eliminating independent farming and concentrating approximately 90% of agricultural land under state-supervised cooperatives by 1958. The system is designed to extract maximum surplus for urban and military consumption, leaving peasants and rural areas with minimal resources.

The regime has periodically attempted limited decentralization. In June 2012, Kim Jong-un announced the “New Economic Management System” (commonly called the “6.28 Measures” after their 28 June announcement date) which granted farm managers slightly greater autonomy in production decisions. A follow-on reform announced on 30 May 2014 (the “May 30th Measures”) allowed farming households to retain up to 30% of output above their state-mandated quota, representing the most significant concession to private incentives since collectivization. However, both reforms have been inconsistently implemented, undermined by local party officials unwilling to cede control, and rolled back or ignored in practice in many areas.

Arable Land and Natural Constraints

North Korea has approximately 2.0–2.2 million hectares of arable land, roughly 18–20% of its total territory — well below the global average for countries of comparable size. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that only about 14% of the land is suitable for cultivation under current practices. Much of the arable land is concentrated in the western plains (particularly in South Pyongan, North Pyongan, and Hwanghae provinces) and river valleys. Mountainous terrain, which comprises over 70% of the peninsula, is unsuitable for large-scale agriculture.

Soil quality has degraded severely. Decades of intensive cultivation without adequate fertilizer replacement, combined with widespread deforestation driven by the energy crisis (rural households stripping hillsides for fuel), have caused significant topsoil erosion. The Korean Peninsula’s climate constrains the growing season to approximately four to five months in most of the country, and typically allows only a single grain harvest per year in northern provinces. The peninsula is also susceptible to both droughts and flooding: the summer monsoon (typically June to August) delivers the bulk of annual rainfall but frequently causes floods in river valleys, while spring droughts are common in western agricultural areas. These natural limitations mean the DPRK cannot achieve agricultural self-sufficiency without significant external inputs — fertilizers, mechanization, improved seeds — and efficient management, both of which have been unavailable or misallocated for decades.

The Structural Food Deficit

North Korea’s annual grain production has consistently fallen short of consumption needs. In typical years, domestic grain production ranges from approximately 4.5 to 5.5 million metric tons (including rice, maize, potatoes, and other staples). The FAO and the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) estimate the minimum caloric consumption requirement for the population of approximately 25 million at around 5.5 to 6.0 million metric tons of grain equivalent per year. This structural deficit of roughly 500,000 to 1.0 million metric tons must be covered by imports and food aid. In particularly poor harvest years, the deficit is significantly larger: a 2019 joint FAO/WFP assessment estimated the food shortfall at approximately 1.36 million metric tons, requiring substantial imports to prevent widespread malnutrition. The regime has historically covered the gap through a combination of imports (primarily from China), international food aid (from South Korea under the Sunshine Policy period 1998–2008, and from the WFP and other UN agencies), and by simply reducing rations for lower-priority population groups.

The 1994–1998 Famine and Its Aftermath

The post-Soviet economic collapse devastated North Korea’s agriculture. After the Soviet Union’s dissolution in December 1991, the DPRK lost access to subsidized Soviet oil, fertilizers, and machinery imports, which had sustained the cooperative farming system for decades. Without fuel for tractors and chemical fertilizers for crops, agricultural productivity collapsed by an estimated 30–40% between 1990 and 1996. Simultaneously, the regime failed to reduce military spending — which consumes an estimated 15–25% of GDP — or curtail the nuclear weapons program, maintaining military consumption at the expense of civilian food production.

The combination of collapsed agricultural productivity, energy crisis, and failed harvests (particularly poor grain harvests in 1994 and 1995, followed by catastrophic floods in 1995 and 1996 that inundated an estimated 15% of arable land) created the conditions for mass famine between approximately 1994 and 1998. The regime referred to this period as the “Arduous March” (Konan-ui Haenggun, 고난의 행군), a term borrowed from the mythology of Kim Il-sung’s 1938–1939 guerrilla campaign against Japanese forces. Conservative mortality estimates from scholars Stephan Haggard and Marcus Noland place famine deaths at approximately 600,000 to 1 million; some demographers, including Daniel Goodkind and Loraine West (in U.S. Census Bureau demographic analyses), estimated excess mortality during the famine period at 600,000 to 2.5 million, with midpoint estimates around 900,000. The famine exposed how dependent the DPRK had become on imported food and energy, and revealed the regime’s prioritization of regime survival over civilian life.

Even after the worst of the famine subsided by approximately 1999, agricultural productivity recovered only partially. Chronic undernourishment remained widespread, particularly among rural populations and children; UNICEF surveys in the late 1990s and 2000s found stunting rates among children under five at 40–45%, indicating severe chronic malnutrition.

International Food Aid and the Sunshine Policy

International food aid has been a critical, if politically contested, element of North Korea’s food security since the famine. The WFP launched its North Korea emergency food operation in 1995 and has maintained a presence in the country intermittently since. Between 1995 and 2008, the United States was one of the largest donors of food aid to the DPRK, providing approximately 2.5 million metric tons of food assistance despite political tensions. South Korea under the “Sunshine Policy” governments of Kim Dae-jung (1998–2003) and Roh Moo-hyun (2003–2008) provided substantial food aid, including approximately 400,000 to 500,000 metric tons of rice annually at the peak, as well as 300,000 metric tons of fertilizer annually — a significant contribution to North Korean agricultural inputs. This aid was suspended when Lee Myung-bak became South Korean president in 2008, contributing to a further deterioration in inter-Korean relations and removing a significant source of fertilizer imports.

International aid organizations have faced significant access constraints within the DPRK. The regime has restricted monitoring, barred aid workers from many rural areas, and manipulated distribution to benefit politically favored groups over the most vulnerable. These access limitations have made comprehensive assessment of food security extremely difficult and have led some donor governments to suspend or reduce aid contributions.

Food Distribution and the Public Distribution System

The DPRK’s public distribution system (PDS) is the state’s primary mechanism for allocating food to the urban population. Under the PDS, the state collects agricultural surplus through requisition and taxation at the farm level, imports food with hard currency, and distributes it through a hierarchical rationing system. Priority in the hierarchy is explicit: Pyongyang and military units receive the largest and most reliable rations; state officials, workers in strategic industries, and urban workers come next; rural populations and those in lower political-class categories (determined by songbun) receive the least.

Officially mandated daily ration levels have ranged from 600 grams of grain (the minimum considered adequate) down to as little as 100–150 grams per person during the worst periods of the famine — well below subsistence. Even in normal periods, the PDS often delivers 300–400 grams per day for lower-priority groups, less than half the minimum caloric requirement. The gap between official rations and survival needs has forced even urban populations to supplement through informal markets.

The Jangmadang Markets as a Survival Mechanism

The informal markets known as jangmadang (장마당, literally “market grounds”) emerged during the famine as a spontaneous survival mechanism. When the PDS collapsed in many rural areas between 1994 and 1998, citizens began trading food, household goods, and later manufactured products in improvised outdoor markets. These markets proved economically more efficient than the PDS at allocating food and goods, and became a permanent fixture of North Korean economic life despite the regime’s periodic attempts at suppression.

The regime has taken a contradictory stance toward jangmadang. Kim Jong-il’s government tolerated them in the 1990s out of necessity, then attempted to curtail private trade in the late 2000s — culminating in the disastrous November 2009 currency redenomination, which wiped out citizens’ market savings and triggered a brief resurgence of unrest before the regime backed down. Under Kim Jong-un, markets have been more consistently tolerated, growing to number over 440 officially sanctioned markets by 2019 (according to South Korean government estimates), with hundreds more informal ones. Markets now provide not only food but consumer goods, construction materials, and services, representing a significant departure from the planned economy’s logic. Nonetheless, the markets operate in a legal gray zone; market participants face arbitrary taxation, confiscation, and periodic crackdowns, particularly on politically sensitive goods.

Agricultural Policy Under Kim Jong-un

Under Kim Jong-un, there have been sporadic efforts at agricultural modernization and reform, including increased investment in fertilizer production capacity (notably the expansion of the Sunchon Vinalon Complex for fertilizer), efforts to improve seed stocks through state research institutions, and occasional public acknowledgment of agricultural problems — a departure from Kim Jong-il’s practice of denying the famine. Decrees in 2012 and 2014 granted farm managers slightly greater autonomy in production decisions and allowed households to retain a portion of surplus production.

However, these reforms have been marginal and inconsistently implemented. The regime continues to prioritize military spending — including its nuclear and ballistic missile programs — over agricultural investment. The COVID-19 pandemic and the DPRK’s voluntary closure of its borders beginning in January 2020 severely constrained food imports and agricultural inputs; China-DPRK trade, which had provided a significant share of food and fertilizer imports, was suspended for nearly three years. The border closure worsened food insecurity significantly: a 2022 UN-commissioned report estimated that approximately 42% of the DPRK’s population was undernourished. International sanctions targeting the DPRK’s coal, minerals, and financial transactions have also constrained the regime’s ability to purchase fertilizers and agricultural machinery on international markets. The regime’s ideological commitment to juche (self-reliance) and its refusal to fundamentally reform the agricultural system or allow genuine private farming have prevented any comprehensive resolution to chronic food insecurity.

Contemporary Food Insecurity

North Korea remains chronically food-insecure as of the mid-2020s. The regime is heavily dependent on food imports, primarily from China, which has accounted for as much as 90% of the DPRK’s foreign trade. Domestic production consistently falls short of consumption needs. Malnutrition, particularly chronic malnutrition (stunting) among children under five, remains prevalent; surveys conducted by UN agencies and the DPRK’s own Central Bureau of Statistics (in cooperation with UNICEF in 2012 and 2017) found stunting rates that declined from roughly 28% in 2012 to about 19% in 2017 — an improvement, but still indicating that a fifth to a quarter of children suffered from chronic malnourishment. The rural population — estimated at 40% or more of the DPRK’s population, concentrated in northern and eastern provinces — experiences significantly worse food security than the urban population.

The regime maintains strict control over information about agricultural output and food security; independent international assessments rely on satellite imagery of farmland, defector testimony, and limited field observations by UN agencies during periods when access is permitted. The jangmadang markets, despite their risks and the regime’s attempts at suppression, represent a critical survival mechanism for many North Koreans — and demonstrate the failure of the planned system and the population’s adaptation through informal, partially market-based mechanisms.

Significance

Agriculture and food security represent a fundamental structural failure of the DPRK’s planned economy and totalitarian system. The famine of the 1990s revealed that the regime prioritizes political control and military power over the basic survival needs of its population — a finding with profound implications for understanding North Korean political economy. The subsequent inability to resolve chronic food insecurity, despite decades of international aid and engagement, demonstrates both the rigidity of the regime’s ideological commitment to juche and central planning, and the fundamental incompatibility between totalitarian political control and efficient agricultural management. The persistence of food insecurity constrains economic development, social mobility, and forces the population into informal market-based coping mechanisms that partially undermine state control — creating a paradox in which the regime’s failure enables a limited form of market liberalization it otherwise seeks to suppress. Agriculture is thus emblematic of the DPRK’s broader economic crisis: a system that has failed to provide basic necessities while maintaining extraordinary resources for military and regime purposes. See also the broader economic system and famine context and the role of the energy crisis in agricultural collapse.

Sources

• Haggard, Stephan & Noland, Marcus (2007). Famine in North Korea: Markets, Aid, and Reform. Columbia University Press.
• WFP/FAO/UNICEF/WHO (2019). Democratic People’s Republic of Korea: Rapid Food Security Assessment. United Nations.
• Lankov, Andrei (2015). The Real North Korea: Life and Politics in the Failed Stalinist Utopia. Oxford University Press.
• Goodkind, Daniel & West, Loraine (2001). “The North Korean Famine and Its Demographic Impact.” Population and Development Review, 27(2): 219–238.
• Natsios, Andrew S. (2001). The Great North Korean Famine. United States Institute of Peace Press.

Related

• Economic System and Famine — the planned economy and the 1994–1998 famine that food insecurity is inseparable from
• Energy Crisis and Electricity Shortage — the post-Soviet fuel and fertilizer collapse that crippled mechanized farming
• Foreign Trade and Economic Sanctions — the food and fertilizer imports and sanctions constraints that shape the food balance
• State Ideology and Propaganda — the juche self-reliance doctrine that frames refusal of agricultural reform
• Rason — a parallel special-economic-zone case of juche autarky failing to deliver