This year's mandarin orange crop is relatively high quality and it’s selling for a good price, which would be great if farmers could find enough people to pick the fruit. Mike Laidman reports.
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Aewol-eup, Jeju City

At this mandarin orchard in (애월읍) Aewol-eup, farmers are busy picking an early variety of orange.

This year's crop looks to be of good quality, and its price has been set high, pleasing growers. However, they are having a hard time recruiting workers to pick the fruit.

Today, their neighbors join in on the harvest, but what will happen tomorrow is uncertain.

As these early mandarins turn from green to yellow, it becomes harder to find pickers.

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Shortage of mandarin pickers

The biggest problem is that the fruit is ready to picked all over the island at roughly the same time, and with 30,000 orchards, this can prove to be a nightmare.

It's almost impossible to find enough experienced fruit pickers from just among one’s neighbors for the whole of the picking season.

INTERVIEW
Lee Jeong-yeo / Mandarin grower
The fruit needs to be picked quickly in October before it rots. The labor shortage is serious. The mandarins are ripening fast with no one to pick them.
<인터뷰 :이정여 / 감귤재배농가>
"10월 한달 안에 썩고 부패과가 생기기 때문에 단기간에 따야 하잖아요. 일손이 많이 부족하죠. 저희도 지금 따야할 밭은 많고 사람 손은 없고 그렇죠. "

In addition, the minimum wage has risen since last year, meaning that growers have to pay about 10,000 won more over the course of a working day per picker. Even with the better prices they hope to earn this year, this is yet another hurdle to overcome.

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Nonghyup fails to find enough workers

The National Agricultural Cooperative Federation has failed in its role to have enough hands ready for the early fall harvest.

The federation will now look nationwide for pickers to prepare for the start of the orchard-grown mandarin harvest season, which begins next month.

INTERVIEW
Kim Dae-won / Rural Support Team, Jeju Nonghyup Office
We're looking for pickers in mainland regions that aren’t currently harvesting. We'll fix the labor shortage by supplying workers in the harvest season.
<인터뷰 : 김대원/ 농협제주지역본부 농촌지원단>
"육지부에 농한기 들어가는 지역을 대상으로 인력을 모집하고 있습니다. 노지 감귤 수확 시기에는 인력 배치가 돼서 문제가 없도록 하겠습니다."

[Reporter] Mike Laidman
[Camera] Hyeon Gwang-hoon

The mandarins this year might be sweet, plentiful, and going for a good price, but it doesn’t help the farmers if all they do is sit on the trees, waiting to be picked.

Mike Laidman, KCTV