Seeding Apple Orchards

Mercy Corps has been actively engaged with the people of North Korea for more than 12 years. From direct food and medical assistance in times of emergencies to long-term agricultural development, Mercy Corps has been building relationships and opportunities for engagement with the people in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

Throughout the years Mercy Corps has been investing in the establishment of diverse, healthy apple orchards in South Hwangae Province as a means of improving the domestic nutritional food-basket. Kwail County produces more than 70% of the apple crop for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, and Mercy Corps has been working with nurseries in the area to strengthen their apple varieties, improve their fruit quality, and increase their harvest yields.

By sending both apple trees and rootstock from the Pacific Northwest to Kwail County, Mercy Corps and the nurseries have produced over 900,000 new apple trees for planting in and near Kwail County. This past spring another 100,000 new rootstock from Oregon were sent to the nurseries to expand the output even further. In the coming six years, we plan to propagate and plant more than three million apple trees in South Hwangae Province.

While working in this region over the years, Mercy Corps has also built relationships with the local community hospitals, and this May we completed a multi-year project to install generators and medical equipment in five county hospitals. New ultra-sound machines, x-rays, neonatal incubators and patient monitors have been installed along with diesel power generators which insure that the hospitals have a consistent supply of electricity for use during regular power shortages.

In March, 2009 Mercy Corps finished a USAID food assistance program where we lead a consortium of five other organizations responsible for feeding 895,000 vulnerable people in North Pyongan and Chagang provinces. For 8 months we had regular and full access to 25 rural counties in these provinces where we were able to institute a highly effective monitoring and distribution program to insure that food assistance reached the targeted beneficiaries. Together with our partner NGO’s, and our host agency, KAPES, hundreds of thousands of children, elderly, orphans and pregnant women were able to get the food they needed.

Mercy Corps remains committed to deepening its partnership in the DPRK as we find new ways to build just, productive and secure communities.