North Korea has not commented on the defection. Their continued prevalence in North Korea could be linked to the use of human excrement as fertiliser, often referred to as night soil. Lee Min-bok, a North Korean agriculture expert, said: “Chemical fertiliser was supplied by the state until the 1970s, but from the early 1980s, production started to decrease. About one in four North Korean children grow to be shorter than their South Korean counterparts, according to the World Food Programme. One-quarter of North Korean children aged between six months and five years who attend nurseries the WFP supports suffer from chronic malnutrition, it said.

Source: The Guardian November 17, 2017 13:01 UTC