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Agri-Food Vulnerability IndexResearch snapshot · not a live alert
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Korea, Democratic People's Republic of

Follow the food-system dependencies and response capacity behind the score. Explore 2014–2023, one year at a time.

Headline snapshot: all seven indicators weighted equally, averaged across 20 filled-in datasets.

Compare this country
Composite score in 20230.5080–1 · higher is more vulnerable
World rank#19Of 178 countries · rank 1 is most vulnerable
Food-basket import dependency64.6%Calorie-weighted dependency profile

A decade in context

Korea, Democratic People's Republic of
0.000.250.500.751.002014201520162017201820192020202120222023Korea, Democratic People's Republic of, 2014: 0.272Korea, Democratic People's Republic of, 2015: 0.272Korea, Democratic People's Republic of, 2016: 0.281Korea, Democratic People's Republic of, 2017: 0.318Korea, Democratic People's Republic of, 2018: 0.360Korea, Democratic People's Republic of, 2019: 0.488Korea, Democratic People's Republic of, 2020: 0.469Korea, Democratic People's Republic of, 2021: 0.495Korea, Democratic People's Republic of, 2022: 0.481Korea, Democratic People's Republic of, 2023: 0.508

Higher means more vulnerable. All countries share the same 0–1 scale. Shading shows the range across 20 imputations, not a confidence interval.

View exact chart values
YearKorea, Democratic People's Republic of
20140.2720.272–0.272
20150.2720.272–0.272
20160.2810.281–0.281
20170.3180.318–0.318
20180.3600.360–0.360
20190.4880.349–0.573
20200.4690.330–0.564
20210.4950.336–0.603
20220.4810.345–0.597
20230.5080.362–0.611

The seven indicators in 2023

Bars use direction-adjusted normalized values: longer always means more vulnerable. Values beside titles retain published units; raw and normalized fields may reflect different imputation stages.

Food import burden

188.0%

Food imports as a percentage of merchandise exports. Source observations are three-year averages; 100% is the scoring saturation threshold.

Production concentration

2,890

Concentration of domestic production by tonnes. Heavy products can dominate this provisional measure.

Climate exposure

0.569

Normalized cereal-yield and population projections. This projection-based component is largely constant over the study window, not annual weather.

Adaptive capacity

0.340

ND-GAIN readiness. Higher is better: stronger capacity to respond to a shock. Darker shading indicates lower readiness.

Behind the import-dependency figure

The score uses bounded dependency values. These additional measures retain the underlying trade picture.

Gross dependency, uncapped
—
Can exceed 100% for processing or re-export hubs.
Net import dependency
—
Imports minus exports, relative to domestic supply; negative for net exporters.
Self-sufficiency ratio
—
Basket-weighted domestic production relative to supply.
Calorie coverage
—
Share of basket calories with usable dependency ratios; standalone IDR ranking requires at least 80%.

Built for open inquiry.

Research context: Raghvendra Singh, TU München, BSc Management & Data Science.

This is academic context, not university endorsement. The research snapshot is presented separately from Verdantia’s current solo-founder company status.

Suggested citation: Mandawewala, S., Singh, R., and Doan, B. See the full source and citation details ↗

Read the research limitations ↗

Source: CEPII, BACI HS12 (V202601). Etalab Open Licence 2.0.

Source: FAO. FAOSTAT (Food Balance Sheets / Food Security), 2026. Licence CC BY 4.0. FAO does not endorse any products or services.

Source: University of Notre Dame, ND-GAIN Country Index, 2026 edition. CC BY 3.0.