A growing number of residents of Yanggang Province are roaming around cities to collect potato peels, Daily NK has learned.
A source in Yanggang Province told Daily NK on Friday that “more and more people are going around Hyesan collecting potato peels this month.”
He said people suffering from food shortages are collecting the potato peels to “make up for their winter food shortfalls.”
In Yanggang Province — North Korea’s chief potato-growing region — locals use potatoes in lieu of rice to make a variety of dishes. However, many families have not received potatoes due to this year’s poor harvest.
With problems arising even in potato distribution amid the already terrible economic hardships people have suffered since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, people living in urban outskirts have barely been able to prepare food for the winter. In these circumstances, people are gathering up anything edible they can get their hands on — potato peels among them.
“With potatoes, you can make several kinds of dishes from them even if they are frozen or rotten. Potato peels, once washed and dried, can be turned into flour to make noodles or jelly [muk], ” said the source.
“I think this year is the first time since the Arduous March that people have been gathering up potato peels to eat,” he added.
In Yanggang Province, people have traditionally turned potato peels into feed for animals such as dogs and pigs. This year, however, people are gradually turning to potato peels for human consumption, providing an indication of just how severe North Korea’s food shortages are, the source explained.
In Hyesan, this phenomenon is most apparent in neighborhoods on the outskirts of the city such as Hyetan-dong, Masan-dong and Yonbong-dong, he added.
Since early fall, some people have been going around to the homes of friends and family, asking them to gather up and give them their potato peels instead of throwing them away.
In fact, the source said one resident of Masan-dong complained to him that: “I never been so poor, no matter how difficult things were in the past. I already feel like current conditions will soon starve my family to death, and with winter now here, I can’t sleep at night. I’m going around the homes of people I know downtown gathering up anything edible as soon as they appear, including potato peels and dried radish leaves, since at least we won’t starve to death if something goes in our bellies, no matter what it is.”
The source said most of the people who live on the outskirts of Hyesan are street sellers.
“But with the authorities intensifying crackdowns on street commerce since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, their livelihoods have come under threat, and now they have to gather up potato peels. And even then, they are facing difficulties,” he said.
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