I got your EASTER BUNNY right HERE...

Berlin - A German retiree is working with North Korea on what he sees as the perfect solution to the country's chronic food shortage - behemoth bunnies that breed like, well, rabbits.

Karl Szmolinsky has raised the German Giants - gray rabbits the size of Cocker Spaniels - for 44 years at his home in Eberswalde, northeast of Berlin.

After winning the biggest bunny prize last February at a state fair - for a 10,5kg, 74cm-long grey giant - the retired chauffeur, 67, received an unexpected call from the regional farmers' federation.

North Korea, apparently, was interested in his rabbits as a possible solution to its perennial problem of feeding its hunger-stricken population.

A meeting was arranged, and diplomats from North Korea's embassy in Berlin drove out to Eberswalde to see for themselves.

"They came here and they checked out the rabbits," Szmolinsky said. "They really liked them."

A woman answering the telephone at the North Korean Embassy in Berlin said she could not comment on the issue.

Szmolinsky sold them four females and two males to start a pilot programme, and plans to fly to Pyongyang himself in April at their request to see how things are progressing.

Females produce two litters of eight to 14 offspring each year, so the four could produce as many as 112 rabbits in the first year alone. At that rate it would not take long to make an impact, especially a single rabbit produces about 7kg of meat.

"They're really good for their hunger problem," Szmolinsky said.

Though the rabbits need to eat a lot to get up to their full weight, Szmolinsky said their appetite should not be a concern for the North Koreans.

"They'll eat absolutely anything," he said. "It's no big problem."

As an added bonus, Szmolinsky says the meat is quite tasty.

"I eat a lot of roast rabbit," he said.