Decreases in production affected the quantity of food available through the public distribution system. Shortages were compounded when the North Korean government imposed further restrictions on collective farmers. When farmers, who had never been covered by the PDS, were mandated by the government to reduce their own food allotments from 167 kilograms to 107 kilograms of grain per person each year, they responded by withholding portions of the required amount of grain. Famine refugees reported that the government decreased PDS rations to 150 grams in 1994 and to as low as 30 grams by 1997. It was further reported that the PDS failed to provide any food from April to August 1998 (the "lean" season) as well as from March to June 1999. In January 1998, the North Korean government publicly announced that the PDS would no longer distribute rations and that families needed to somehow procure their own food supplies. By 2005, the PDS was only supplying households with approximately one half of an absolute minimum caloric need. By 2008, the system had significantly recovered, and, from 2009 to 2013, daily per person rations averaged at 400 grams per day for much of the year, though in 2011 it dropped to 200 grams per day from May to September.