Leftover scraps from meals enjoyed by Party cadres, the donju, 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.