North Korea’s annual rice planting mobilization campaign has produced an unexpected side effect: a spike in taxi demand, as people across South Pyongan province pay for rides rather than risk being stopped on the street and conscripted into farm labor.
A Daily NK source in South Pyongan province said Wednesday that taxi demand in Sunchon and Pyongsong had been declining due to rising fuel prices, which forced operators to raise fares and drove away customers. Since the rice planting mobilization began, however, ridership has rebounded sharply.
Each spring, North Korean authorities launch a mass mobilization campaign to send urban workers, students, and others to rural areas to assist with rice planting. The campaign, which takes place under state direction, draws on party and youth organization networks to identify and dispatch personnel, and enforcement teams are deployed at major intersections to intercept anyone found moving around without authorization.
Taxis offer cover from street patrols
The source said enforcement teams from the Socialist Patriotic Youth League and the Korean Democratic Women’s Union, two of the main mass organizations the state uses to administer mobilization drives, have been stationed at key points throughout the province. Teams stop pedestrians, check their identification, and send anyone eligible for agricultural support directly to nearby farms.
North Koreans who need to travel for legitimate reasons have found that riding in a taxi offers a practical way to avoid these checkpoints. Enforcement teams generally do not stop moving vehicles or remove passengers, so people who would otherwise walk short distances are now paying for rides. “Even a trip someone would normally make on foot, people are now deliberately taking a taxi,” the source said. “Anyone with urgent business is spending more on getting around to avoid the risk of being stopped.”
The source described the situation as an unintended consequence of the mobilization policy itself. “It’s an absurd situation where the state’s mass mobilization order is inadvertently filling taxis and keeping the taxi business alive,” the source said.
For taxi operators, the relief is real but likely temporary. Fuel prices remain high, and operating costs have not fallen. Once the rice planting mobilization period ends and enforcement teams stand down, the pedestrian detour effect will disappear and ridership is expected to fall again. The source said that as long as fuel prices continue to rise, the underlying pressures on the taxi sector will remain.
Reporting from inside North Korea
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May 22, 2026 at 06:42AM
by DailyNK(North Korean Media)