The North Korean famine (also known as the Arduous March or the March of Tribulation) was a famine

Famine

A famine is a widespread scarcity of food, caused by several factors including crop failure, overpopulation, or government policies. This phenomenon is usually accompanied or followed by regional malnutrition, starvation, epidemic, and increased mortality. Every continent in the world has...

 in North Korea

North Korea

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea , , is a country in East Asia, occupying the northern half of the Korean Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Pyongyang. The Korean Demilitarized Zone serves as the buffer zone between North Korea and South Korea...

 which began in the early 1990s. Estimates state that, from a population of approximately 22 million, between 900,000 and 3.5 million people died from starvation or hunger-related illnesses, with the deaths peaking in 1997.
In the early 1990’s, The Economy of North Korea

Economy of North Korea

The economy of North Korea is an industrialized and centrally planned economy.North Korea's economy remains one of the world's last centrally planned systems. The role of market allocation is sharply limited – mainly in the rural sector where some peasants sell produce from small private plots....

 was on the precipice of collapse.