Naming as “interesting labour tours”, famine stricken North Korea will now offer tourists the chance to plant rice and carry out agricultural work.
Tensions between the West and the secretive communist state have been increasing in recent months, but the country is nonetheless advertising trips where people can experience working in the fields.
Each year, more than 100,000 tourists are believed to visit the country. According to the official website of North Korea tourism, visitors on the tours “are immersed in different [aspects of] labour life”. Activities include “manual rice-planting, weeding and fruit picking at the co-op farms or orchards in the country”. The website also stated that “through the tours they can get an understanding of the agricultural policy and farming culture of the country and experience the diligent, cheerful profiles of the local people’s labour activities.”
The country has been previously suffered from food shortages and summer drought leaving millions of people hungry. About 3.5 million people were killed in an extended famine between 1994 and 1998.
Despite the impoverished totalitarian state, organised tours to the country have been there for a long time and most of the tourists are Chinese. The boat tours into the country from the border city of Dandong, apparently gives a look at the poverty of their neighbours.
