Kim Jong Un Convenes Party Meeting As North Korea's Food Shortage Worsens

Kim Jong Un on Monday convened a meeting of North Korea's ruling party officials amid fears of food shortages and a growing humanitarian crisis. 

What Happened: The supreme leader oversaw the seventh enlarged plenary meeting of the 8th Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea as Kim reviewed rural development projects, state news agency KCNA reported.

Earlier this month, South Korea said Pyongyang's food crisis appears to have deteriorated further and is facing severe food shortages. 

It was “a very important and urgent task to establish the correct strategy for the development of agriculture,” the state media said earlier while announcing the meeting. 

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South Korea's Unification Ministry said that Kim's isolated nation has effectively acknowledged severe food shortages in the country, with Seoul pointing to the meeting as a de facto of serious shortages.

"North Korea's food situation doesn't seem very good," South Korea's Unification Minister Kwon Young Se told the parliament.

"We're seeing a number of signs…though it doesn't yet look like there's a stream of people starving to death."

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In January, the U.S.-based 38 North program – a program of the US-Korea Institute which monitors North Korea – said in a report that “food availability has likely fallen below the bare minimum with regard to human needs.”

It added that food insecurity has been at its worst since the famines of the 1990s.

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