Dirt Farmers

Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, the former wife of South Africa’s President Nelson Mandela, has announced she is selling bottles of soil scraped up from the lot of the house she shared with Nelson in the 1950s. For $11, the bottle comes with a “certificate of authenticity”. Meanwhile, South Korean trading company Hyowon Moolsan is importing dirt from North Korea — where food shortages are leading to mass starvation — to give to locals as part of a promotion. In exchange for cards stating why they want it (example: the dirt is “for my father. He came to the South during the war and really wanted this.”), the company is providing a jar of soil from the north. One woman said, “My husband’s parents are from North Korea and we have been feeling bad that there’s nothing we can do for them.” (Reuters, UPI) ...Scraping up the last of their farmland and shipping it out of the country will certainly help a lot.