Stephan Haggard Quoted on Spread of Livestock Disease in N. Korea
Livestock Disease Fuels Food Concerns
02/15/2011
Hee Jung Yang,
Radio Free Asia
North Korea faces an uphill battle against foot-and-mouth disease.
Veterinarians check cattle at a farm northwest of Seoul, Dec. 25, 2010.
A fast-spreading livestock disease in North Korea threatens to aggravate the chronic food shortage in the reclusive country, where oxen are key to farm production.
More than 10,000 oxen, cows, and pigs have been infected in the outbreak of the highly contagious foot-and-mouth (FMD) disease, and thousands have already died, North Korea’s official news agency said in a statement last week.
The statement came after RFA reported that North Korea had appealed to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) for help in containing the spread of the disease.
Stephen Haggard, a North Korea expert at the Washington-based Peterson Institute for International Economics, said on Monday that the impact of the disease will not be limited to direct effects on North Korea’s “precarious food supplies."
“North Korean agriculture is also heavily dependent on draft animals for both plowing and transport,” Haggard wrote in a Peterson Institute blog.
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Stephan Haggard can provide commentary on current developments in the Asia-Pacific, including particularly Korea, and on the politics of economic reform and globalization.
