North Korea’s Food Crisis and the Theory of Comparative Advantage
Donor fatigue has hit the World Food Program’s much-reduced North Korea operations:
James Morris, the agency’s outgoing chief, told the WFP executive board session in Rome earlier this week that the operation in North Korea “is dramatically underfunded.”
“If we are to continue, and you overwhelmingly have said you want us to stay there and want us to be helpful in addressing the humanitarian agenda, we are going to need some help,” he said.
“Otherwise, come February, we will be out of business.”
I would rather see North Korea get no food aid at all than see it get unmonitored aid that the regime can steal, use as a weapon, or otherwise use to prolong the agony of its people. With this year’s domestic production as low as it appears to be, an aid cutoff would, at the very least, force the regime to cut back on military spending to keep its elite eating well. The goal, however, should be concerted international pressure to force North Korea to open itself up to monitored and transparent aid for everyone.
Another measure the U.N. ought to consider: a ban on food exports from North Korea. North Korea should not be expending its agricultural energies on producing such luxuries as mushrooms, ginseng, seafood, poultry, alcoholic beverages, or walnuts (which I’ve seen in South Korean stores). Those exports are harvested from land and water that should be used to feed the domestic population. Yes, I suppose I’m asking to repeal the theory of comparative advantage, but how much of the cash North Korea earns from those exports is used to buy rice?
Meanwhile, Japan, with an eye to 1718’s prohibition on the export of luxury items to North Korea, is taking a closer look at the luxury foods it sends to Kim Jong Il’s banquet tables.
The daily said the government’s main guide on the issue is a book titled “I Was Kim Jong-il’s Cook,” written by Kenji Fujimoto, who was Kim’s personal chef for 13 years before escaping. According to the book, Kim enjoys bluefin tuna from the Tsukiji Fish Market in Tokyo. For stews, it has to be Matsuzaka beef from Mie Prefecture, a prime product that sells for W25,000 (US$1=W939) per 100g.
Kim is also a big fan of chicken from Nagoya, Kikkoman soy sauce, Bunmeido Castella sponge cake, Suntory Imperial whisky, and Nissin Cup Ramen. But cracking down on the instant noodles would also hit the people of North Korea, so Kim will not be deprived of the pleasure just yet. “It looks like banning the cup ramen won’t be possible, and in the case of the bluefin tuna, we aren’t sure if we need to ban it altogether or just the belly flesh,” a thoughtful official said.
When we hear that Kim Jong Il is eating parched corn, we’ll know that the sanctions are working.