What caused North Korea’s famine during the 1990s?

The famine in North Korea during the 1990s, often referred to as the "Arduous March," was caused by a combination of severe economic and environmental factors.12

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the fall of communist regimes in eastern Europe, North Korea lost its primary trading partners and a critical source of economic aid. Additionally, China began requiring cash payments for materials instead of providing the previous grants-in-aid or credit.34

These economic hardships were compounded by a series of natural disasters in the mid-1990s, including severe floods and droughts, which devastated the country's agricultural output. These events, coupled with long-standing structural problems within the nation's command economy, resulted in widespread starvation and malnutrition, leading to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people.3214