By Jon Herskovitz
SEOUL (Reuters) - Lingering flood damage, high commodityprices and political wrangling with the South could pushimpoverished North Korea this year into one of its worst foodshortages since a famine in the 1990s, experts said.
North Korea might make concessions on humanitarian issuesin order to receive handouts from South Korea, but Pyongyang'sleaders would try to keep any crisis on its farms from spillingover into international nuclear disarmament talks, they added.
North Korea, which even with a good harvest still fallsabout 1 million tonnes, or around 20 percent, short of the foodneeded to feed its own people, relies heavily on aid fromChina, South Korea and U.N. aid agencies to make up the gap.
"If the South and the global community fail to send foodaid to the North, we might see a food crisis even worse thanthe one in the 90s," said Kwon Tae-jin, an expert on theNorth's agriculture sector at the South's Korea Rural EconomicInstitute.
A famine in the mid-to-late 1990s killed more than 1million North Koreans in a country of about 23 million.
North Korea for years has been able to receive massive foodaid with few questions asked by left-of-centre South Koreangovernments who have seen the handouts as a small price to payto keep the peninsula stable.
But a conservative government that took power in SouthKorea last month said there would no longer be a free ride forits capricious neighbour. North Korea's slow-moving governmenthas not yet adjusted to the policy change, experts said.
New President Lee Myung-bak wants to tie aid to progresshis communist neighbour makes in nuclear disarmament, reunitingfamilies separated by the 1950-53 Korean War and returning morethan 1,000 South Korean citizens believed to be still held inthe North.
North Korea typically asks the South to provide it withabout 300,000 tonnes of fertiliser for its spring planting aswell as with 500,000 tonnes of rice. The North has been quietthis year.
"North Korea has yet to ask for fertiliser aid most likelyin fear of facing rejection from the South," Kwon said.
WAITING FOR POTATOES
Without the fertiliser, North Korea is almost certain tosee a fall of several tens of tonnes in its harvest, Kwon said.
The North will start to feel the shortage the hardest inthe coming months when its meagre stocks of food, alreadydepleted by flooding that hit the country last year, dry up andbefore the start of its potato harvest in June and July.
Another expert said he expects the North to request foodaid in the next few months as it looks for measures that willmeet the Lee government's calls for reciprocity.
"The new South Korean government cannot support the aidwithout some sort of show of good behaviour," said NamSung-wook, a professor of North Korean Studies at KoreaUniversity.
China, the closest thing North has to a major ally, has toomany problems of its own, such as keeping runaway grain pricesunder control, to help its destitute neighbour.
"China cannot export to North Korea because of its badharvest, snow damage and agricultural inflation," Nam said.
North Korea has been able to receive food aid from foessuch as the United States even in tense times during nucleartalks because Washington sees that sort of assistance ashelping poor people to survive, and thus outside the politicalarena.
"They are a different set of problems," Nam said. "NorthKorea wants to deal with the food crisis on a humanitarianlevel."
(Additional reporting by Lee Jiyeon; Editing by AlexRichardson)
