PRESS BRIEFING BY WORLD FOOD PROGRAMME

23 May 1996

Press Briefing

19960523 FOR INFORMATION OF UNITED NATIONS SECRETARIAT ONLY

The Director of the North American Office of the World Food Programme (WFP) Douglas Casson Coutts, at a briefing this afternoon told correspondents that he had just returned from a mission to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea to monitor the WFP food assistance effort in aid of flood-affected persons in the north of the country. The floods had affected 500,000 of 5 million collective farmers in the area.

Based on his experience, primarily in Africa, he said that various early warning systems were required to effectively anticipate famine and potential famine situations. Today, there was not necessarily a famine under way in the Democratic People's Republic of Korean, but there were "pre-famine indicators". In an African context, there were several tried-and-true indicators -- sudden migration of people, underfed babies and young children, and the consuming of seeds. What had been seen in the Democratic People's Repbulic of Korea was that people were consuming substantial quantities of wild foods and herbs, as opposed to traditional grains.

Cooperation with the Government of the Democratic Peoples' Republic of Korea on the mission had been excellent, he said. As part of his investigations, he had interviewed families, attended their meals and monitored their eating habits. About 20 million tons of cereals had been imported. The WFP had planned a 90-day programme of assistance beginning in October 1995, but a ship carrying food aid had been lost at sea. Food aid was now in the country, which was good because May to September was a critical pre-harvest period. However, all available food aid would be distributed by mid-June and more would be available thereafter.

Families in the north of the country were living principally off gathered greens, and rice, he continued. The people affected by the current situation were collective farmers living completely outside of the national food distribution system. There were 22 million people in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, some 62 per cent of whom received staples from the Government's Public Distribution System.

A few years ago, when the Democratic People's Republic of Korea had subsidized arrangements with the then Soviet Union and China, the System aimed to provide a daily ration of 900 grams of food per industrial worker, he said. When those relations ended, the target had been 500 grams to 700 grams per day. Now, the System was providing only 250 grams per day. That figure was likely to drop to 200 grams by the end of the month, less than half the food needed for someone working in an office and far less than the food needed to sustain agricultural workers.

The main compensation method for persons affected by the current situation was to eat fresh greens which were only available in the spring, he went on. They appeared to have little in the way of emergency food stocks. The 5 million people affected by recent floods in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea were collective farmers living outside of the Public Distribution System. At harvest time, they normally received a payment of 250 kilograms of food per person, which would amount to 500 grams per day. This year, they had received far less than half of that amount.

Families and children were very important in their society, he said. One would assume that in a situation of food shortages, adults would tend to forego nutrition so that children could continue to eat well. His mission had found that in many of the collective farms, where all feed stocks and animals had been lost, some farmers were being asked to provide food for day-care centres.

The Government of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea was very serious about the principle of self-reliance, he said. Its request for high levels of international assistance had been unprecedented. Clearly, officials at the county and provincial level had been told by the central Government that no further assistance was available from it.

Individual county food managers were entering into import arrangements with commercial traders in China, he continued. Already this year, 150,000 tons of barter trade had taken place with those traders. They had traded wood from deforested hills, quarried marble, scrap metal from factories, whatever they could, for Chinese wheat flour, which they were receiving at very disadvantageous prices. It was a seller's market on the Chinese border.

The WFP was alerting the international community to the fact that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea was having a seriously difficult time in feeding its people, he said. The WFP was asking for 35,000 tons of food for regular programmes and 25,000 tons for food-for-work programmes. What was being done now was merely "Band-Aid" work to address the immediate needs of the affected population. An additional concern was the structural problem in the country's agricultural sector. The WFP was also asking governments in the region to make large contributions -- similar to the hundreds of thousands of tons received last year -- to the national food distribution system. The WFP now had a monitoring programme in that country to facilitate that effort. The Programme would ensure that the food was getting to the right people.

Was the only food aid coming to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea from China on a commercial basis? a correspondent asked. Mr. Coutts said that the country enjoyed lucrative, subsidized imports from China, which stopped two years ago. To his knowledge, there was no official food aid coming in from China. When the floods took place, the WFP assumed that 700,000 tons of food would be imported commercially. But the 700,000 tons had

World Food Programme Briefing - 3 - 23 May 1996

not materialized as a result of the Government's critical lack of foreign currency and fuel. Some 90,000 hectares of land -- 20 per cent of the arable land in the country -- had been lost in the floods.

To a question on the WFP operation in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, he responded that they had four international staff there. The WFP was not distributing food on its own, it was working through government distribution channels, which was the traditional method. Local county officials were making food distribution a top priority. They were sending small 5-ton vehicles, and using their scarce fuel resources, to retrieve food from ports.

To a question on the likelihood of recovery in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, he said that the WFP believed that this year's harvest could be well below average; the country had not been self-sufficient even before the floods.

Several agencies and non-governmental organizations were already working in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, he continued. For example, World Vision and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) were involved. The WFP had raised over $200,000 in the United States from small non-governmental organizations -- an unprecedented amount in the history of the organization. The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) was importing "CSB", a corn-soya blend used as a weaning food for babies. The WFP had shipped in 27,000 tons, and an additional 13,000 tons were coming from other donors. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) had maintained a country programme there for many years. A number of other United Nations agencies worked in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, out of offices in Thailand and China. The Department of Humanitarian Affairs was preparing a second appeal for assistance.

Had they seen any deaths from starvation? a correspondent asked? He responded that words like starvation and famine should be used sparingly. What they had seen were a number of "pre-famine indicators". Household food security was very severe. About 65 per cent of the population was receiving 250 grams of food per day, which seemed a very low figure.

To a question on regional political talks with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Mr. Coutts said that politics came into the food situation, but that was not really the focus of the WFP's effort. The Democratic People's Republic of Korea was a country that had experienced its worst flood in a century.

To a question on the composition of families in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, he said that the average rural family comprised six to eight persons. Communities in the country were very stoic, self-sufficient and proud. There was no "hand-out" mentality. The Democratic People's Republic of Korea had asked for imports of rice on non-commercial terms, and had received 200,000 tons each from the Republic of Korea and Japan.

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