North Korea factories join spring foraging scramble, squeezing out ordinary people
As spring foraging season gets underway across North Korea, workers from state-run food factories have joined the annual race for wild mountain vegetables. Their organized presence is intensifying competition with local communities and cutting into a food source many families depend on for basic nut
Daily NK
75
4 min read
0 views
Korean angelica-tree shoots (Wikimedia Commons)
As spring foraging season gets underway across North Korea, workers from state-run foodfactories have joined the annual race for wild mountain vegetables. Their organized presence is intensifying competition with local communities and cutting into a food source many families depend on for basic nutrition, Daily NK has learned.
A Daily NK source in North Pyongan province reported on Friday that factories have recently deployed workers en masse to foraging sites across mountainous areas including Dongchang county, Taechon county, and Changsong county. Workers have been setting up temporary tent camps at the base of mountains and staying overnight to maximize their daily haul.
Factory workers sweep the mountains from dawn to dusk
Workers are heading up the mountain as early as 5 a.m. and foraging until dusk, gathering bracken fern, du-reup (angelica tree shoots), and gomchwi (Korean mountain lettuce), along with other edible wild greens. Some factories have gone further, deploying on-site processing crews that sort, dry, and salt-preserve the gathered greens directly on the mountainside. The source described the practice as unprecedented.
The source linked the mobilization to pressure tied to the regime’s local development policy. “It is driven by moves to secure locally sourced raw materials and commercialize them as regional specialty products, in line with the party’s emphasis on local development,” the source said.
The party’s local development policy is a flagship initiative under Kim Jong Un. It tasks each province and county with boosting their economies through locally available resources.
Wild vegetables have long served a dual function in North Korea. They supplement the sparse diets of ordinary people during the spring lean season and generate foreign currency through export. Every spring, North Korean people head to the mountains in large numbers. This year, the organized participation of factory units has sharply escalated that competition.
Analysts and observers link the factory mobilization to mounting pressure on enterprises under North Korea’s self-reliance policy. Factories must now secure their own raw materials rather than depend on state supply chains.
The consequences for ordinary North Korean people have been immediate. Factories deploy large organized teams that sweep entire mountain areas, leaving far less for individuals and families.
“The amount that can be gathered is limited, and factory workers are going up the mountain and taking everything, so there’s less and less left for local people,” the source said. “To secure even a little more before it runs out, you have to head up the mountain ahead of everyone else.”
“Not a single wild green will go to waste”
Families are now mobilizing every available household member. They head out earlier and venture deeper into remote areas to find greens not yet picked over. The competition has become a grim running joke among locals: “This year, not a single wild green will go to waste on the mountain.”
For many families, wild vegetables have been one of the few remaining buffers against food insecurity during the spring gap — the period between when stored winter food runs out and the summer harvest arrives. North Korea’s annual lean season typically arrives in April, though sources in recent years report it has been shifting earlier, with many households running out of grain as early as February.
“People have been getting by on what the mountains have to offer, patching together what they can for side dishes,” the source said. “Now even that is becoming harder. People are realizing for the first time just how large a part wild vegetable gathering has played in putting food on the table.”
Daily NK operates networks of sources inside North Korea who document events in real-time and transmit information through secure channels. Unlike reporting based on state media, satellite imagery, or defector accounts from years past, our journalism comes directly from people currently living under the regime. We verify reports through multiple independent sources and cross-reference details before publication.
Our sources remain anonymous because contact with foreign media is treated as a capital offense in North Korea — discovery means imprisonment or execution. This network-based approach allows Daily NK to report on developments other outlets cannot access: market trends, policy implementation, public sentiment, and daily realities that never appear in official narratives.
Maintaining these secure communication channels and protecting source identities requires specialized protocols and constant vigilance. Daily NK serves as a bridge between North Koreans and the outside world, documenting what’s happening inside one of the world’s most closed societies.
