Leftover scraps from meals enjoyed by Party
cadres, the donjuLiterally "masters of money," donju refers to people who hav... More, and others in the upper socioeconomic class of North Korea
are circulating in the markets as a popular form of pig slop. Though the
concept is hardly new–stores and restaurants began selling these bits after
the famine of the mid-1990s, known as the “Arduous March”– lately wealthy
families have gotten in on the act by selling their leftovers at a premium
price.
“After the [Lunar New Year] holiday, the
price of the scraps rose by about 3000 KPW [0.38 USD] per bucket,” a source in
South Pyongan Province told the Daily NK on February 24th. “Plenty of people
raise their own pigs, but this year is the first time we’ve seen rice bits and
scraps from personal residences hit the marketplace.”
He went on to explain that in the past, people raising pigs for sale used to simply toss in the rice
leavings as a friendly freebie after the transaction. A bucket of leavings currently, however, can fetch a pretty penny at the market, especially if it is a quality product.
“Scrapings coming from ordinary homes have
very little nutritional quality, so one bucket of it may only cost 500 KPW
[0.06 USD], but the leavings from relatively affluent families includes traces
of meat, seafood, and stew, so one bucket can cost approximately 2000 KPW [0.25
USD]. This price rose to 3000 KPW [0.38 USD] after Kim Jong Il’s birthday
[February 16th] and the Lunar New Year holiday,” he explained.
According to the source, raising pigs for a living no longer applies only to those in farming villages; people in the
city are also giving it a go. Normally it takes about eight or nine months to
feed a pig and bring it to market. Pigs fed leavings, on the other hand, grow up
and fill out at a relatively faster pace, which is why the cost has gone up. The cheaper option of general pig feed usually consists mostly of tofu grounds, cornmeal, moju [a rice wine],
and/or manure.
“These food scraps are more expensive than
moju, but speed up the pig’s growth and also help protect against the spread of
certain diseases. Pork from pigs raised on leavings is sweeter and softer than
pork from pigs that were fed moju and/or manure; that’s why it yields the
highest profits at the market,” he said.
Despite the increasing popularity of these scraps, they can still be hard to come by if one lacks the proper connections. “Wealthy families who sell the leavings risk being caught by
the authorities for corruption and unlicensed selling, so they usually only deal
with those they know they can trust,” he concluded.
