Thais Pick Blueberries In Lapland

[Buff-horns]

Thai berry pickers earn money in Finnish Lapland

A group of 40 Thais arrived in Savukoski in the north of Finland on Thursday evening to spend the coming two months picking wild blueberries to earn extra money.

A total of about 92 of the pickers are coming to Savukoski for about two months, when blueberries are ripe in the local forests. Most of the pickers are rice farmers at home who do not speak English. Saowanee Akosuma, who works in an office, serves as an interpreter.

Finnish berry farmers have been recruiting foreign pickers to bring in the harvest for some years now. The greatest numbers of foreign pickers of cultivated berries come from Russia and Estonia.

Foreigners with just a tourist visa are allowed to pick wild berries and sell them. They do not need to sign an official labour contract, and can stay for up to three months on their visas. They pick the berries themselves, and sell them to a berry processing company. Wild blueberries fetch about one euro per kilo, cloudberries bring in EUR 4.50 a kilo, and lingonberries EUR 0.80 a kilo.

The employers are required to offer housing. However, some pickers prefer to avoid the expense and sleep in a tent.

Riitan Herkku, a food processing company in Mustasaari, has bought a vacant local school and day-care centre as a place of lodging for the villagers. However, there have been some complaints about the purchase.

"Unfortunately some take a negative view of this. We do buy berries from local people as well, but we need more. There is huge demand for blueberries around the world", says Jan-Erik Gustafsson of Riitan Herkku.

The group's guide Heikki Kilpelä has scouted the area for good picking grounds, and in the upcoming days, he will help the pickers get better acquainted with the local map, and help them move around the forest more independently, in their own groups.

In a forest, Sunthorn Champeechot is busy picking.

"This is very important for me, because I earn so well. It is fairly hard work, but I can manage", he says through an interpreter.

Most of the Thai pickers who are working in Finland this year have been doing the same thing in Sweden in previous years. They pay their own travel, accommodation, and rent for the cars that they use. Many have borrowed money for the trip. They hope to earn more in Finland, because the number of pickers is smaller here than in Sweden.

The interpreter says that in spite of the expenses, they manage to earn quite a bit of money. The pickers say that whereas their normal monthly salaries are about 7,000 baht - just under EUR 140, they expect to earn the equivalent of more than 100,000 baht.

The local unemployment rate in Savukoski is quite high: in June it stood at 20%, which was an improvement on the average figure for the early part of the year, which was 24.9%.

However, officials insist that there is plenty of room for both local and foreign berry-pickers in the community.

"It is good that the berries get picked. The unemployed also pick plenty of berries, but the berry season is so short that it will not eliminate unemployment", says Lauri Ylisaari, the municipal trade promoter.

Helsingin Sanomat

http://www.helsinginsanomat.fi/

[edh]

Great!!!

[sua yai]

They'll be used to the mosquitoes then?

[olaus]

Also many thai pickers in northern Sweden. In one District (Fredrika in Vasterbotten ) there are now 800 thai people. One of them, a young man from Chaiyaphum south - west of Khon Kaen, earned enough money from berry - picking last year, so he could build a house for his family. This year, which is a super good year for berries in Sweden due to warm and rainy weather, he is planning to buy a car - workshop from his earnings.

[a2396]

Maybe the USA could send some excess migrant workers to other cuntries. I hope the living conditions for them in Finland are better than the USA equivilant.

[bina]

oh dear here we go again:

they borrowed money at exorbitant rates or morgaged mom's land for the trip; they paid a go-between to help find the work plus bribes to put them on the list: its the same all over the world for them.... just the visa part is different....

migrant labour is migrant labour and it doesnt matter if it is friendly finland or israel or the states

on the other hand , it usually is good money

[dereklev]

Maybe the USA could send some excess migrant workers to other cuntries. I hope the living conditions for them in Finland are better than the USA equivilant.

I trust that is a spelling error! !

Or are you implying the rest of the world is full of c*nts! !

One never knows with Yanks! !

[sadman]

How warm does Lapland get? I went to the Ice Hotel last year and it was -19 during the evening and -60 (including the wind chill factor) racing snowmobiles across the frozen lake. Clearly, its warmer than that, but LOS to Lapland must be a bit of a shock.

The other shock is that the cost of living is just ludicrous there, so workers will find their hard-earned slipping through their fingers like water, even if they're careful.

Also, Buff-Horns: you have truly inferior taste in bar girls, if your avatar is anything to go by. (Although I've had worse).

[lappami1]

Now in Lapland about +17-25 C. I was just in Thailand and I tried to get visa for my girlfriend for three weeks holiday in Finland, but couldn't. Next time I'll tell her to fill visa application for picking blueberries. Maybe better luck

[astral]

Are we sure the are blueberries.

That sounds terribly American.

Blackberries, or Black currants are more likely in Europe,

and a great deal more tasty.

[a2396]

Maybe the USA could send some excess migrant workers to other cuntries. I hope the living conditions for them in Finland are better than the USA equivilant.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I trust that is a spelling error! !

Or are you implying the rest of the world is full of c*nts! !

One never knows with Yanks! !

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yes, a spelling error - "country". There are plenty of cxnts in USA, so no need to look elsewhere for such types. My mistake, but I got a good laugh from your post.

[aaaaaa]

Are we sure the are blueberries.

That sounds terribly American.

Blackberries, or Black currants are more likely in Europe,

and a great deal more tasty.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

yes, sure ! I picked and ate a lot of them myself around that area - above polar circle.... delicious !

blueberry Species :

Vaccinium angustifolium

Vaccinium arboreum

Vaccinium ashei

Vaccinium corymbosum

Vaccinium melanocarpum

Vaccinium myrsinites

Vaccinium myrtilloides

Vaccinium occidentalis

Vaccinium pallidum

Vaccinium tenellum

Vaccinium vaccillans

Vaccinium virgatum

OCCURRENCE AND UTILIZATION OF WILD VACCINIUM SPECIES IN FINLAND

bog blueberry /

The smallfruit species of most commercial importance in Finland, the lingonberry and bilberry, both belong to the Vaccinium genus.

FINNISH BERRIES

Blueberry

(Vaccinium angustifolium)

Blueberry is native to North America and is nowadays cultivated also in Europe. In Finland blueberries are used much like bilberries (see left).

Compared to bilberry, the flavour of blueberry is very sweet but somewhat bland, lacking the complexity of flavour of the former. Blueberries are much larger in size than bilberries and their flesh is almost colourless.

BREEDING OF HIGHBUSH BLUEBERRY IN FINLAND

Of the species in the Nordic countries the bog blueberry, V. uliginosum L., with the same tetraploid chromosome number, 2n = 48, as the highbush blueberry, has been successfully crossed with the latter. On the basis of this cross-breeding the first Finnish highbush blueberry variety named ‘Aron’ was released for general cultivation in the spring of 1982

HALF-HIGHBUSH BLUEBERRIES Vaccinium 'AINO' and 'ALVAR'

- see bottom of the page

Edited August 9, 2005 by aaaaaa

[meadish_sweetball]

Definitely blueberries.

The three berries mentioned in the Finnish article are the ones most commonly found in the pine forests of Northern Scandinavia - cloudberries typically grow on bogs, but blueberries and lingonberries grow almost everywhere on the forest floor. Of these, blueberries are the most prevalent - during a good year I can walk out of my house here and be back with a full 10 litre-bucket in about one-one and a half hours. And they taste great.

[lampard10]

Definitely blueberries.

I can walk out of my house here and be back with a full 10 litre-bucket in about one-one and a half hours.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Well there's not much else to do in Sweden.

[dr_Pat_Pong]

Definitely blueberries.

I can walk out of my house here and be back with a full 10 litre-bucket in about one-one and a half hours.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Well there's not much else to do in Sweden.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Except drinkin' and freezin'

[Totster]

Definitely blueberries.

I can walk out of my house here and be back with a full 10 litre-bucket in about one-one and a half hours.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Well there's not much else to do in Sweden.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Except drinkin' and freezin'

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

... and not forgetting the saunas...

totster

[Boon Mee]

Definitely blueberries.

I can walk out of my house here and be back with a full 10 litre-bucket in about one-one and a half hours.

Well there's not much else to do in Sweden.

Except drinkin' and freezin'

...and the wife swappin'...

[edh]

Definitely blueberries.

I can walk out of my house here and be back with a full 10 litre-bucket in about one-one and a half hours.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Well there's not much else to do in Sweden.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Except drinkin' and freezin'

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

...and the wife swappin'...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You don't freeze when filled up with alcohol

[sadman]

You don't freeze when filled up with alcohol

Maybe not, but at the prices they charge in Sweden, you couldn't drink enough to stay liquid.

[lappami1]

Are we sure the are blueberries.

That sounds terribly American.

Blackberries, or Black currants are more likely in Europe,

and a great deal more tasty.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Blackberries don't exist in Finland and Black currant grows in garden not wild in wood.