Five U.S. aid agencies say that North Korea’s food stocks are expected to be exhausted by mid-June.

The Christian Friends of Korea, the Global Resource Services, Mercy Corps, Samaritan's Purse and World Vision made the projection in a joint statement on Wednesday.

The statement was issued, as a team of seven experts from the agencies visited the North earlier this month at Pyongyang's request.

The agencies said that their survey team "observed evidence of malnutrition, food shortages, and people foraging for wild grasses and herbs."

The statement added that such food shortages and malnutrition trends “are particularly prevalent among families that depend on the North’s public food distribution system, and most severely impact children, the elderly, the chronically ill and pregnant and nursing mothers.”

The organizations said that more than 50 percent of key crops, including wheat and barley, planted for harvest in the spring had died last year because of the cold.

The statement then quoted North Korean authorities as estimating that food stocks will be exhausted by the summer.

The aid agencies said the North needs some seven-point-nine million tons of food annually to feed its people, but that its food production last year stood at only five-point-one million tons.