A Buddhist monk who heads a relief agency says North Korea needs at least one-and-a-half million tons of rice from the international community to avoid serious famine.

The head of Good Friends, the Venerable Beopryun, made the statement Tuesday at a seminar on North Korea hosted by the Peace Foundation.

He said the North is most likely to face a serious food shortage next year, as a growing number of countries have cut assistance after the North's nuclear test.

He said that this year's rice supply is estimated at three-million tons, much smaller than the three-and-a-half million tons in the mid-1990s when three million people reportedly died of starvation.