North Korean farm workers are siphoning off grain during the 2026 fall harvest by secretly dropping rice bundles on the way to threshing grounds. Accomplices then collect the fallen bundles later, a scheme that reflects deepening food insecurity on the country’s collective farms.
On Oct. 24, a cart driver hauling rice at a farm in Kumya county, South Hamgyong province, let a bundle fall along the route. The village party secretary spotted him, a Daily NK source in the province said on Friday. This official is the Workers’ Party of Korea’s top figure in the village and holds wide sway over the local cooperative farm.
Accused of trying to steal grain, the cart driver was eventually hauled before a struggle session. These are public criticism meetings where North Koreans must confess their faults and endure denunciations from coworkers.
Many North Korean farms still rely on ox-drawn carts to move harvested crops because they lack farm machinery. Even the tractors they do have often sit idle because of chronic fuel shortages on collective farms. Hauling rice bundles by cart, however, creates frequent openings for what the authorities call “grain loss.”
Some farm workers reportedly plan ahead and divide up roles among themselves before moving the harvested bundles. A cart driver slips a bundle off at an agreed spot where few people pass. A partner then quietly picks it up and hides it until the group can split the haul.
Farms have tried to curb the practice by assigning a farm worker to walk alongside each cart driver. The Kumya county farm had posted such a watchman, but he sent the cart driver off alone. He then went to tend his own private garden plot, and the farm later harshly criticized him for abandoning his duty.
“It takes 30 minutes to an hour to get from the fields to the threshing ground,” the source said. “As long as you avoid being seen, you can drop as much grain as you like along the way. People who see eye to eye and trust each other team up to siphon off grain this way.”
He summed up the season in one phrase, telling Daily NK that “the fall harvest is a war of throwing.”
Cash wages leave North Korean farm workers short of food
According to the source, farm workers pilfer grain because their year-end settlement distribution cannot carry them to the next harvest. This is the annual payout collective farms make to workers after the harvest, based on each person’s labor days and the farm’s output.
North Korea amended its Labor Wages Act last year to require that farms pay workers in cash rather than in kind. The goal was for farm workers, like urban laborers, to buy their food at state-run grain stores. Pyongyang billed the change as a first step in agricultural reform under Kim Jong Un. It even sent inspection teams to trial farms to verify that cash payments were being made.
With the North Korean won highly unstable, however, many farm workers experience cash wages as a cut in real income. Their resistance has been so fierce that many farms cannot enforce the cash rule written into law. Depending on local conditions, these farms still hand out a set portion of grain alongside cash.
Farm workers eat part of that grain and sell the rest to buy other food and daily necessities. By the following spring, though, their grain is effectively gone, leaving many households struggling to survive. The same desperation has pushed farmers in other regions to guard their private plots day and night against thieves.
“For farm workers, grain is food, but it also effectively works as money,” the source said. “That’s why they try to save every last kernel they can in the fall. People say that in the fall, you have to keep your hands, your feet and every nerve in your body on high alert.”
This article was originally written in Korean and translated with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
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.
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November 4, 2026 at 04:23PM
by DailyNK(North Korean Media)