North Korea is expected to harvest more crops this year than originally estimated, according to South Korean agriculture experts who have been to the North recently. “The countenance of North Korean farmers I met were good," said Professor Kim Sun-kwon of Kyongbuk University, dubbed the ‘corn doctor,’ who just returned home after touring a dozen farming areas in Kangwon, North and South Pyongan, North Hwanghae, and North and South Hamgyong provinces since late September.

"Though leafhopper damage was rather severe, the rice harvests are excellent. The rice crops this year are estimated to reach between 3.47 million tons, a record-high in recent years and 4 million tons, up over 500,000 tons from previous years." Dr. Kim Un-gun, the head of the North Korea Agriculture Center, Rural Economy Research Institute, who traveled the North with Prof. Kim, estimated the North's rice crops this year at 3.5 million tons. "North Korea's rice harvests this year are not likely to be poor, given that the rice grown in the North is the same type as that cultivated in Chorwon (South Korea), whose weather conditions are similar to those of the North, and where a bumper harvest was produced," observed Kim Song-pil, a researcher at the Rural Development Administration.

Relatively favorable weather conditions are attributed to providing the North with a good harvests in contrast with the grim World Food Program forecast that due to the "worst drought in a millennium," this year's rice, corn, wheat, bean and cereal crop harvests of the North would be the poorest since 1997. For three months since the drought, North Korea has enjoyed favorable weather conditions, having adequate rainfall across the country from June 15 and sustaining little damage from storms. Enough rain fell in late September to benefit autumn vegetables, according to the experts.

Accordingly, the food shortages in the North should be alleviated a little. North Korea may manage with the upcoming harvests, plus crops grown in individual farmers' patch fields, Professor Kim Sun-kwon speculated. "Even the authorities said electric power is more urgently needed than food," he said. He ascribed the good countenance of North Korean farmers to "bumper bean harvests thanks to which the farmers have been able to drink bean milk." Since last year Pyongyang has had farmers cultivate beans on about 150,000ha of cornfields, and allowed them to keep 10% of the harvested beans. As a result, an increasing number of farmers drink bean milk. They harvest 0.8-1 ton of beans per 1ha.

But the food shortages are reportedly still acute in smaller cities and villages deep in the mountains. "Small and medium-sized city laborers, carrying knapsacks, were seen buying green perilla, potatoes and corns, grown in farmer's patch fields," said Doctor Kim Un-keun. "This is partly because of lower prices in farming villages than in marketplaces. But it also indicates a serious food situation in small and medium-sized cities."

"No small number of people in Hamgyong provinces still subsist on a food prepared by boiling a substance out of long-rotten corn stalks and reeds with saccharine or sugar added," said a South Korean businessman engaged in business with the North.

(Lee Kyo Kwan, haedang@chosun.com )