North Korea’s overall food imports from neighboring China fell by a quarter in 2015 when compared to the previous year, while imports of cereals and related food products fell to ten year lows.

An NK News analysis comparing monthly figures and data stretching back to 2005 shows that some of the DPRK’s primary food imports fell to levels not seen since the middle of the last decade.

In particular cereals – a trade group which includes rice – continued a steady decline throughout last year until settling at 30 percent of 2014 totals. But at 27,000 tonnes the figure was