The European Union announced July 4 it would provide €10 million of emergency food aid to North Korea through the World Food Program (WFP) until the end of September — before this year's harvest.
This aid represents a much delayed response to an initial request for humanitarian assistance sent by North Korean Foreign Minister Pak Ui-chun on Jan. 24. The letter thanked the EU for earlier assistance and requested 100,000 tons of emergency food aid and fertilizer for this year's farming. The letter noted that while the WFP and Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) had conducted a crop and food security mission in the autumn of 2010, which had estimated for North Korea's production a shortfall of 867,000 tons of food, this initial estimate had proved over-optimistic, as heavy rain and floods affected the final grain harvest and kimchi production — the winter vegetable staple of North Korea — in August and September.
The public distribution system, which once supplied everything then limited to providing fitful supplies of rice and other cereals, has apparently delivered nothing in Pyongyang since March. And recent floods bode ill for early 2011.
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