North Koreans shun state

By Yi Whan-woo

North Koreans are buying privately grown napa cabbages for kimchi-making season because they are unhappy with the quality of cabbages from state-run farms, according to sources in Pyongyang.

The kimchi-making season, which starts in November, is crucial because kimchi is an everyday dish in both Koreas and the quality of the cabbages will decide how well the family eats from winter to spring.

"Lots of napa cabbages are hauled to the local market on carts and wagons," a source told Radio Free Asia (RFA) recently. "People in the markets only want to buy cabbages grown on private fields because of their superior quality."

The private farmers use enough fertilizer and water, which makes their cabbages tenderer and sweeter than the state-grown farms, according to the sources.

The private farmers also like to cultivate medium-sized cabbages, whereas the state-run farms grow large ones that do not have packed leaves in the center.

The harvesters for the state-run farms lamented the quality of the produce.

"They complained about the quality of what they were harvesting and asked for time to sell the harvest on the market instead of keeping the cabbages for their own use," a source said.

"The government just tells the vegetable farms to make cabbage at a preset cost determined by the state. They don't help out with any fertilizer or farming equipment, so it's hard to produce anything of good quality.

"All they can do is plant the seeds, do some calculations for the crop and assign harvesting and distribution duties to different factories."