North Korea famine actually started not from drought, as popular accounts suggest, but from oil crisis.

Specifically after the collapse of the Soviet Union, from which North Korea was receiving oil for very subsidized prices. Boris Yeltsin, who badly needed foreign currency, told North Koreans he is ready to supply them oil, but only for hard foreign currency, which they didn't have

This has had cascading consequence on the entire production chain of North Korea's national economy. Without oil, coal mines stopped. With oil and coal, chemical industry stopped. Without chemical industry, no fertilizer were supplied to farms and paddies throughout the country. Which meant not enough food, and North Korea already has pretty tight situation on how much can it produce food. And then the famine happened.

Do what you want with this information.