'[North Korea] has completely recovered from the 'Arduous March',' it states, 'and has survived as a country which has now become stronger and more independent than before.'

No one should be fooled. The gap between how Pyongyang wants to be viewed by the world and reality could not be wider. Stark warnings are emerging that a repeat of the 1990s famine could soon be occurring.

Even with the relative bounty of the past few years, United Nations estimates point to lingering malnourishment for about a third of North Korean children and mothers - a situation expected to worsen significantly. An estimated 6.5 million people out of a population of 23 million already struggle to feed themselves properly.

Floods last autumn - the worst in 40 years, according to international observers - have devastated the staple crops that were supposed to tide the country over the usual lean months of late winter and spring.

International relief flows are down and, domestically, prices are soaring for the people - partly because North Korea's habitual isolation cannot protect it from regional economic inflation. In Pyongyang, the prices of staples have doubled in the past year, according to the UN World Food Programme (WFP). A kilogram of rice - which would not last a worker one week - now costs more than a third of that worker's monthly wage.

Anecdotal evidence gathered by foreign aid organisations suggests the state's distribution and subsidy system is breaking down. School children are skipping classes to join their parents in the hunt for food in the countryside. Workers in state-run farms are leaving their jobs to do the same.

In the mid-1990s, tens of thousands of starving refugees poured across North Korea's long and porous border with China, survivors describing people subsisting on bark and grass. Estimates of the death toll range from hundreds of thousands to 3 million.

'The food security situation ... is clearly bad and getting worse,' the WFP's Asia director, Tony Banbury, said recently. 'It is increasingly likely that external assistance will be urgently required to avert a serious tragedy.'

UN estimates put the national shortfall at 1.66 million tonnes of cereal, of the 5.5 million tonnes needed just to maintain the status quo.

The broadening sense of crisis plays into wider regional concerns over food security as well as the intensifying diplomatic chicanery over the international effort to force North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons.

South Korea's new president, Lee Myung-bak, has stopped the annual food aid shipments as part of his long-stated policy of demanding that the North first live up to its promises to denuclearise. Pyongyang has also turned to its traditional ally China, but diplomatic sources say terms have yet to be agreed, with Beijing facing its own food security and inflationary pressures.

North Korea is also seeking food shipments from Vietnam and the US, but again regional diplomacy and rising prices are complicating matters.

Mr Kim is expected soon to stage a rare foreign mission, travelling to Beijing and Hanoi. Although some analysts hope both Chinese- and Vietnamese-style reforms will be on the agenda, it seems increasingly certain that the more basic issue of food will dominate talks.

Nothing is simple when it comes to North Korea. The regime in Pyongyang has yet to flag the worsening problem and it remains far from clear whether it will allow large-scale food shipments from international bodies. It prefers to deal with countries one-to-one and on its own terms.

Veteran regional diplomats with experience of dealing with North Korea warn of its ruthlessness. They say as long as the ruling elite that surrounds Mr Kim is secure, they will not allow themselves to be troubled by events that would spur other nations into action.

'Are they worried about the risk of mass starvation?' said one diplomat 'Probably ... but only as far as it affects the stability of the regime. If they are feeling secure, we know from hard experience that they are prepared to let the situation get considerably worse before they give in to international pressure. They are not about to be pushed around for anybody, famine or not.'

Reports in South Korea, for instance, have claimed that food aid shipments last February were diverted to North Korean military units feeling the pinch, and away from needy peasants.

The WFP, meanwhile, has endured its own problems. Between 1995 and 2005, the organisation's relief efforts directly supported up to a third of the population. Distributing aid from international donors, the WFP shipped 500,000 tonnes of food aid annually.

Pyongyang then requested that the organisation stop direct humanitarian assistance in favour of development programmes. The shipments have shrivelled to just 75,000 tonnes a year.

WFP spokesman Paul Risley said this week that there had been 'positive indications' of possible discussions with Pyongyang about resuming direct assistance on a larger scale. 'The situation is ripe for the WFP to return to more direct humanitarian action,' he said. 'Obviously, there will have to be considerable discussions over precisely how this will work. This will take time but there are positive indications.'

The Political and Economic Risk Consultancy, a private Hong Kong analysis firm, is warning that the food situation could complicate the broader regional picture.

'Logic would imply that Pyongyang will be more willing to negotiate because it will be in desperate need of food aid,' the consultancy said in a recent report. 'However, history has shown that when Pyongyang is in the most desperate economic situations it sometimes responds by becoming even more difficult to negotiate with.'

Traditionally, in times of crisis the North sounds even more belligerent than usual, reasoning that Seoul, Beijing and other capitals will be more willing to offer aid to get it to stop.

This time, however, the international food situation is adding new pressure and Pyongyang may be forced to be more threatening, the report notes.

'The risk is that an imminent economic crisis arising from a shortage of food could raise political and military risk on the Korean peninsula to higher levels again.'

Victor Hsu is one aid worker hoping the wider political environment doesn't cripple the drive for action. The New York-based North Korea director for World Vision is travelling in the country to check on the charity's programmes. On a previous trip last September he warned of the devastation of the flooding across the country's already limited arable land. On other trips, he saw many children showing blemishes and other possible signs of long-term malnutrition.

'I hope food aid will be flowing as soon as possible,' Mr Hsu said shortly before his departure on Tuesday. 'I know that the need is there and I know that the children are suffering ... there has been a lack of food for the last five years and we know things are now getting worse.

'What political issues there are involving North Korea and the international community, I hope can be overcome quickly ... these are children we are talking about.'