The health of North Korean crops has improved little to none in recent years despite the regime’s repeated efforts to boost production, an NK Pro analysis of satellite imagery has found, a worrying sign for an already undernourished population facing worsening food insecurity during the pandemic.

The findings come courtesy of near-daily enhanced vegetation index (EVI) data from NASA’s MODIS Terra satellite, which approximates the health of crops and other vegetation by carefully measuring light reflected from the Earth’s surface.

When coupled with land survey data that distinguishes crops from