Hunger is driving teenagers in Kwail county, South Hwanghae province, to sneak into state orchards this summer. They pick peaches and plums to eat on the spot or carry home. Guards increasingly look the other way rather than punish them. A source in the province described the pattern to Daily NK recently, pointing to worsening hunger among North Korean children in 2026.
Peaches and plums are now in season, the source said. In Kwail county, teenagers in groups of two or three have been slipping into orchards to eat fruit or take it home. “Orchard guards only shout to scare them off,” the source said. “They don’t chase after them to catch them.”
Kwail county is a hub of North Korea’s fruit industry, known mainly for apples but also producing pears, peaches, grapes, persimmons and apricots, according to the source. Most of the fruit grown there goes to central government officials and Pyongyang residents.
Hunger, not profit, now drives the fruit picking
To protect that supply, North Korean authorities guard the orchards closely, assigning discharged military veterans to watch over them and prevent fruit from being diverted. Even under such tight security, children slip in regularly to ease their hunger, the source said.
“Until last year, most kids picked fruit to sell for money,” the source said. “This year, the mood has clearly shifted. Food prices and overall living costs have risen, more families are struggling, and now kids are going into the orchards mainly because they’re hungry, not to make money.”
Children tend to enter the orchards when security is looser, the source said. Some leave school partway through the day when hunger becomes unbearable and head straight for the fruit trees. Many time their visits for between noon and 1 p.m., when guards and farmworkers are eating lunch.
Children are well aware of their family’s financial struggles, the source said, so they often avoid telling their parents they are hungry. Instead, they sneak into the orchards. Some even eat unripe ears of corn straight off the stalk to fill their stomachs.
Guards who spot children in the orchards often decline to catch them, the source said. They understand hunger is driving the behavior, and they know that formally reporting a child could bring public humiliation or criticism down on the child and their parents at school, work or in the neighborhood. So guards typically just shout to scare children off.
Guards do step in more forcefully when children take large quantities of fruit or linger long enough to affect the harvest, the source said, since any shortfall in production could make the guards responsible for lax security.
Farmworkers at the orchards have also responded with sympathy rather than anger, according to the source.
“When a child leaves class partway through the day, the homeroom teacher lets the parents know,” the source said. “When parents ask why, the children usually say they were too hungry to sit at their desks. Farmworkers who hear these stories tend to feel sorry for the kids rather than blame them.”
“Adults can get through hunger by drinking water,” the source added. “But children who are still growing can’t do that. People around here keep saying they just wish the kids wouldn’t have to go hungry.”
Reporting from inside North Korea
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July 16, 2026 at 06:39PM
by DailyNK(North Korean Media)