In a report released on Sunday, the Hyundai Economic Research Institute said, "Soaring international grain prices will further worsen North Korea's food shortage and encourage more North Koreans to flee the country. This will very likely lay a big stumbling block to North Korea's opening and create instability for Northeast Asia as well."

If it is protracted, the upward rise of grain prices caused by short supply will have serious effects on global food security. This, in turn, may cause wide-spread starvation, produce more refugees, and cause regional armed clashes, the research institute said.

In order to attain food security, the research institute urged the South Korean government to enhance its food self-sufficiency and lay a stable foundation for food supply by strengthening cooperation with neighboring countries in cultivating food crops on undeveloped land. The institute also called on the government to seek strategic cooperation with North Korea in the agricultural sector.

The Washington Post on Saturday wrote, "This year, though, the famine bailout season is more urgent, more complicated and more politically explosive than at any time since the mid-1990s, when millions starved behind North Korea's closed borders. Severe crop failure in the North, surging global prices for food and tougher behavior by donors, particularly South Korea and China, are putting unaccustomed pressure on Kim Jong Il's dysfunctional communist state."

(englishnews@chosun.com )