North Korea plans to hold a plenary meeting of the ruling Workers’ Party for the second time in two months to discuss agricultural issues amid reports of serious food shortages in the nation.

According to the North’s official Korean Central News Agency on Monday, the ruling party’s Central Committee held a politburo meeting the previous day and reached a unanimous decision to convene the seventh expanded plenary meeting of the party late this month.

Underscoring the urgent importance of drawing up the right strategies to develop agriculture as well as exploring solutions to pending agricultural issues, the agency said a turning point is needed to push for a fundamental revolution in agricultural development.

The convention of a second plenary session of the ruling party within two months is a significant deviation from the North’s standard practice of holding such sessions once or twice a year.

The gravity of the food crisis in North Korea was outlined in an assessment released last month by U.S.-based monitoring website 38 North based on analyses of data from the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization(FAO) and the World Food Programme(WFP).

The observer estimated that the current food shortage in the regime is likely the worst since the great famine in the 1990s, when up to five percent of the population is estimated to have died from starvation.

[Photo : KBS News]