The Effect of Food Shortage in North Korea
According to the article Famine in North Korea "In the mid-1990's, as many as one million North Koreans died in one of the worst famines of the twentieth century." (Haggard). The article goes on to say that the reason for the food shortage in North Korea is because they were pushed too hard for self-reliance and could not come up with a quick response to the shortage. They also state that the government was blocking humanitarian relief. This means that because North Korea is such a closed state, when crops are destroyed for some reason such as flooding, there will be a food shortage for the entire country if crops are destroyed unless they seek outside sources and import enough food to make up for the loss of food. This along with other things such as blocking humanitarian relief are the reasons that North Korea had so much famine in the early and mid 1900’s and is repeating itself now in the year 2011.
This is a sad and somewhat avoidable issue. The fact that the government would rather let their people starve than open up trade with other countries or accept the humanitarian relief should be looked at as tyrannical rule. The starvation of any people because the government will not respond is very dystopian. The effect of this food shortage in North Korea is very sad and shows how much of a dystopian society that North Korea really is. If you would like to read the whole article written by Stephan Haggard and Marcus Noland it is available at the Columbia University Press online.
This is a sad and somewhat avoidable issue. The fact that the government would rather let their people starve than open up trade with other countries or accept the humanitarian relief should be looked at as tyrannical rule. The starvation of any people because the government will not respond is very dystopian. The effect of this food shortage in North Korea is very sad and shows how much of a dystopian society that North Korea really is. If you would like to read the whole article written by Stephan Haggard and Marcus Noland it is available at the Columbia University Press online.
