Hunger-stricken North Koreans have been served a smorgasbord of disasters recently, but the struggling country got a double helping late last month when it was hit with two typhoons over the course of three days. Now, adding to those woes is the North Korean government, which last week turned away food and medical supplies from South Korea after calling the humanitarian offer insulting.

Typhoon Bolaven struck on August 28 and 29 and was followed a day later by the smaller Typhoon Tembin. The duo compounded damage caused by severe flooding in late June. The summer storm season is thought to have killed at least 300 and left nearly 300,000 homeless, according to The Wall Street Journal. Before the flood and typhoons, the country was facing the worst drought conditions it had seen in the past 100 years.

Unfortunately for agriculture-dependent North Koreans, Mother Nature keeps dishing it out. Countrywide deforestation and drought have greatly decreased the land’s ability to withstand heavy rainfall. Recent typhoon conditions are exacerbating early summer damage caused by droughts and floods, according to The Guardian. Now, the country is plagued with landslides, submerged homes, and thousands of acres of crop loss, and the typhoons keep coming. The catastrophic damage points to what could be a serious food shortage in the coming months.

"North Korea's food situation next year could be difficult," an anonymous South Korean official told Reuters.

One South Korean official estimated a loss of 600,000 tons of crops and another noted that North Korea will likely see a 13 percent decrease in its grain harvest, which includes rice and maize. It is estimated that 45,000 hectares (or 1.7 percent of arable land) has been destroyed in the wake of the consecutive disaster.

Even without the losses caused by disaster, lack of arable land is a problem. In a given year, North Korea typically produces 4.5 million tons of grain, though the United Nations estimates it needs approximately 5.3 million tons to provide for the population. So while food insecurity is always a threat to the nation of approximately 24 million, disasters can greatly intensify the risks.

“It is a long-term problem and the supplies are likely to be very low,” Kim Hartzner, an aid worker with Mission East, told Reuters in a story that appeared in the Star Phoenix. “The damage to the arable land will not have an effect tomorrow or the day after; it will have an effect in two or three months … but I think this will affect a sizable proportion of the maize.”

Despite Hartzner’s claims, UN Food and Agriculture Organization representative Hiroyuki Konuma announced Saturday that crop production may not be severely affected after all.

"My understanding from my visit there yesterday was that the damage was not so significant," he was quoted as saying in an AlertNet report.

Even if crops do rally, though, North Koreans will be far from having enough food on their plates. The government last year halved the amount of rations to a level that provides about half the daily energy requirements of each individual, Konuma told AlertNet.

Help isn’t likely to come from outside sources, either. In recent years, North Korea has all but ended humanitarian efforts with strict aid worker restrictions. At the same time, displeasure with recent North Korean brinksmanship has again lead the U.S. and other nations to turn off food aid.

Last week, the North Korean government turned down South Korea’s offer of flour, ramen noodles, and medical supplies, saying that the amount and type of goods were an insult, according to The Washington Post. The behavior is reminiscent of a situation last year in which South Korean aid was rejected when the South opted not to meet the North’s demand for equipment and building materials—which could have been used for military purposes—in addition to the offered medicine and food.

All this goes to show that even without disaster, food security in North Korea is still, well, a disaster. One of the few programs operating in the country, the UN World Food Programme, has one-third of the funding necessary to provide assistance and is deeply concerned about malnourishment, especially among children.

“We still need continued support from the international community to ensure that we can provide everyone with a full ration,” WFP spokesman told AlertNet. “Although the harvest is coming, from this point on it will take some time before it’s processed and available on the tables of the people around the country.”