Exhausted farmers in Sakju county, North Pyongan province, are watching their fields around the clock after repeated thefts from family plots, working late into the night to rush their harvested grain home before thieves can strike.
“There are constant stories these days about family farms being pillaged. Locals are exhausted from doing their jobs in the daytime and watching their grain at night,” a source in North Pyongan province told Daily NK recently.
Most residents of Sakju county depend on small hillside plots they cultivate themselves. With state rations cut off and markets no longer reliable, families have been forced to become self-sufficient by growing their own food.
But each harvest season, thieves routinely target these private plots, making off with the produce families have worked so hard to grow. That’s led locals to mobilize relatives to stand guard over their fields at night.
“Older family members basically live in the fields. They can’t fight off thieves themselves, but the sound of movement in the guard tent is enough to scare them off,” the source said.
“In families without older members, the man of the house heads out to the woods as soon as the day’s work ends and keeps watch all night. A good crop can bring in a ton of corn. Families are determined to protect their food reserves,” the source added.
Nightly chaos at checkpoints
Since most private fields are around 8 kilometers from home, getting there and back takes several hours. To prevent theft, families hurry to bring harvested grain home in burlap sacks, working from early morning until late at night.
Police at major checkpoints have stepped up inspections of harvested grain to ensure it wasn’t stolen from collective farms. But angry farmers are pushing back, demanding to know what’s wrong with transporting grain from their own fields. It’s hardly surprising that people forced to subsist on meager output from small plots would be on edge.
“There are many people who steal grain from collective farms, but there are also many harvesting from private fields. That makes it almost impossible for police to figure out the source,” the source said.
“The late hours are like a war zone with police blowing whistles and people shouting. There’s so much commotion nearly every night that people no longer pay attention to it.”
Given the difficulty of distinguishing thieves from honest farmers in the dark, police have reportedly taken to patrolling area farms on bicycles during the daytime instead.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: dailynk.com
