A photo in November 2022 shows two Thai workers picking berries in a forest in Finland. Photo: Ministry of Labour. Source: Bangkokpost

The 2018 Finnish research highlights Finland's vast organic collection area for natural products, specifically wild berries and mushrooms, covering an impressive 11.6 million hectares, which makes Finland a global leader in this regard. This area includes the whole of Lapland and some parts of the Northeast as well as the Kainuu region. The 11.6 million hectares of organic collection area in Finland accounts for approximately 30% of the world's total organic natural products area, which is estimated to be around 39 million hectares.

About 50 different wild berries grow in Finland, of which 37 are edible. The most commercially significant and well-known natural berries are lingonberry, blueberry and cloudberry. With an estimated 500–1000 million kilos of wild berries ripening in Finnish forests annually, only 40–45 million kilos (approximately 4.5-9%) are collected. Households pick up around 30 million kilos mainly for personal consumption, with only a small portion being sold on the free market. Only about 12–15 million kilograms end up in the industry and are processed into various products. However, it is estimated that the collection of wild berries could be increased to about 100 million kilos.

Citizens of a relatively wealthy country like Finland are generally not motivated to engage in berry picking as a means of earning a living or improving their well-being, given the physically demanding nature of the work.  The way out was found in 2005, when the first small group of wild berry pickers from Thailand arrived in Finland, mainly workers from rice fields where work is suspended from July to September for the monsoon season. For twenty years, Finland and Thailand have failed to resolve the human and labor rights of the Thai pickers, mainly because of the selfishness of the Finnish companies that act as the inviting party, which seek to increase their profits by overexploiting the Thais. The result is a system that is very reminiscent of serfdom in a country where it has never existed.

So, wild berries picking for industrial processing in Finland is mainly done by berry pickers from Thailand, and about 2,100 pickers from Thailand came to Finland in summer 2023 for picking blueberry and lingonberry. In 2022, commercial berry picking companies collected a record eight million kilograms of lingonberry in Finland and almost nine million kilos of blueberries. The majority of this collection was carried out by berry pickers from Thailand, with around 4000 Thai workers arriving in Finland on tourist visas specifically for berry picking.

Until now, Thai pickers have been deprived of the rights enjoyed by pickers from other countries. The fact is that they are only allowed to sell their picked berries and mushrooms to the inviting company, and are not given the freedom to choose their own buyer who offers a higher price or pick the most profitable berries at their choice. In addition, they are deprived of the right to choose their accommodation and car rental company, as well as are limited in their mobility within Finland in search of the most profitable places to pick berries. Furthermore, the shorter visa duration of 70 days compared to the usual 90 days may also impact their ability to plan and manage their work effectively. Their wages are not paid in cash, but through intermediaries in Thailand. All in all, Finnish berry companies are a part of what is called human trafficking.

Read more about Thais poor conditions in Finland due to the failure of the authorities of the country to comply with its own laws.

Read below the cry from the heart of a Thai berry picker and see why the Thai government did not issue permits for them to travel to Finland for berry picking in 2024.

Please, give us our freedom

Hello, I’m a Thai berry picker

I think, very few people only know and understand what kind of work berry picking is when it is done to make earnings from it. And this is because they haven’t done this by themselves or because not a one of real pickers has ever told them about it

Now, I will tell you about this, how these things had been ordered for Thai-pickers and also what is wrong in this business and how all this should be arranged for us

It is attractive to travel for berry picking, because between June to October it is not possible to earn a living at the country side in Thailand. But in Finland it is possible by doing picking in there.

It is important to understand and accept the fact that only part of Thais is capable to do picking work. So, I will talk about real pickers now only. By real picker I mean a person that is suitable for this type of work. Normally that person is a rice or sugar cane farmer.

Forest camp of Thai berry pickers in Finland. Source: Freeze frame from You-Tube video

We have been doing farm work with our hands since we were small kids. All berry companies in Finland would like to work with us because as pickers we are supremes compared the others.

The fact is that in berry picking same like in farm work, only a person who is self-imposed, hard-working and is used to work persistently can manage it.

For a Thai-berry picker, the income from berry picking is normally many times higher compared the earnings from rice farming. In this work, you may win or lose same like in farm work.

Earnings from berry picking is heavily dependent on capabilities of a picker and also dependent on a crop and on a issue of a picker price of berries and especially on a matter on what kind of opportunities for a picker are allowed to have to achieve results in Finland.

Real pickers haven’t dare to bring these restrictive issues for them to publicity, because they have been afraid it may cause them problems to come to pick berries for next year again in Finland.

There had been also some fortune hunters and vacationers among pickers who hasn’t have the right attitude towards a work demanding like this.

To put an end for abuse of this system could be possible when officers of the embassy of Finland would interview all applicants traveling to Finland as berry pickers.

All the other applicants are interviewed except berry pickers. Why is it so?

I’m telling now the opinion of a real pickers. I’m not telling stories of scammers who had been promised to have good money of telling namby-pamby pity stories.

We real pickers understand a berry buyer cannot pay someone holiday trip to Finland or be responsible of if someone is coming to Finland in bad faith or if some one’s capabilities were not good enough to work as a berry picker.

For a real picker the most important issue is how much he can get money back home from his trip to Finland. All other things are not that important for him. Especially if these things are making his amount of money back home lower.

In Sweden it is common Thai pickers will not get money back home. Changing this occupation under employer employee state didn’t solve the picker’s problems.

Either in Finland the situation for a Thai picker is not good yet.

A picker can achieve the best possible amount of money back home when he can freely make his own decisions on what he’s picking, where he’s picking and so that he can stay at Finland until the end of a berry season. Unfortunately, the situation for a Thai picker is not that way now.

Thai pickers are coming to Finland with a tourist visa. They are picking with every man’s rights and with their own risk basically as free tourists, but not in practice.

As a consequence of regulatory policies and orders, Thai pickers are deprived of their freedom, which other people and tourists according to law in Finland have.

Other people on behalf of Thai pickers decide how are they allowed to do their job in Finland. And this is not their advantage. This is a big disadvantage in this activity.

It is strange too that there is a demand for Thai pickers to have an exit permit from Thailand when traveling as tourists to Finland. Wondering why?

Thai people are discriminated in these matters.

If a Thai picker starts to act according (to) his own benefit, it will not do good for him.

In practice, Thais are allowed to pick blueberries and lingonberries. Sometimes also cloudberries in limited quantities. In some special cases only small quantities of some mushrooms too, if that’s allowed from their inviting company.

All the other pickers can freely pick and sell all types of berries and mushrooms that can be found from forests. Thais would like to do the same and put companies purchasing prices under competition to improve their own incomes.

This is not possible for a Thai picker because he must have an inviting company who’s will he must follow if he would like to come again to Finland on next year.

Berry crops are varying heavily from year to another and between different regions in Finland. Different types of berries are also growing on different types of forests.

Move according the berry crop is a key and everything when you want to be successful in picking. Some years it is easy to find berries and some year is not that easy.

When a good picking place is found, only a well-motivated and hard-working person can make a good result. A rice farmer normally can do it, but in many cases a factory worker or a sales person cannot do it.

It is necessary for a picker that he can work all the time in a high-yielding harvesting area. Also, a picker has to change his picking areas according the ripening of the crop and according the berries, possibly several times during the season.

Accommodation for many companies is located in the area of Kainuu. In year 2018 there weren’t practically berries at all in that area. Picking had to be done elsewhere. Despite of this, some companies still accommodated their pickers in their places in Kainuu. Some did it even for the whole time of the season.

If someone wanted to pick cloudberries, he had to travel all the way to the north of Lapland.

In 2018 for blueberries pickers had to travel to the area of Kuusamo and Salla, because anywhere else quantities were too small to do well successful picking.

For big groups of pickers picking blueberries meant driving very long distances. For example, back and forth from the picking area to Kajaani camp the driving distance was over 700 km.

An example of Thai berry pickers route from their accommodation to berry-picking place in Finland. Freeze frame from You-Tube video

In these cases, pickers went to their main camp for every second or every third night to take their berries in there and get more food supplies with them. Most of their nights were spent in the forests. In many cases, picker earnings were based on this operation method.

Often, pickers don’t have any other option to make money back home in the present practice.

Luckily, when staying overnight in the forests no one will come to disturb pickers in there.

For every night spent in the forests, pickers pay full amount of rent to their inviting company.

For picking lingonberries pickers had to go some different areas. On 2018 most of Thais were picking lingonberries in the area of Northern Karelia and the area of Kokkola.

For picking lingonberries you had to travel a long way.

There would have been mushrooms in the forests, but only very few inviting companies are buying them in from their pickers.

Pickers don’t dare to sell mushrooms other parties than their own inviting company. If you’re caught from that, you are not welcome to become a picker anymore for the next year.

We need to have a change to this issue now. An option to pick and sell freely the product that is the most profitable to us on each moment.

If there wouldn’t be an inviting (company) compulsory for us, we could do so.

All different berries in 2018 were picked mainly all over Finland.

For the upcoming year, no one cannot say nothing yet in which side of Finland pickers had to drive to pick berries to be able to survive.

The amount of crop is only known when the berries are ripe.

The inviting company decides alone where pickers will pay the rent for their accommodation. In many cases this place is not close to the picking area.

Providing accommodation from an outsider is out of the question for a picker. It would double the cost, because picker would had to pay rent to two places at one time and they can not afford to do so.

Also, this problem would not be, if pickers would come to Finland without an invitator (inviting party).

Our opinion is that (a) free man should have a right to decide by themself where he will accommodate himself.

Threshold to move pickers out from their own house for an inviting company is high, because it would increase the cost itself easily for tens of thousands of euros.

I have seen pickers in the forest elsewhere than Thailand. They don’t pay rent to any one when they are staying over night in the forest.

We are coming from the countryside, and can survive in the forest, but still we need to pay rent to our inviting company from the time when we cannot use its accommodation place for the reason of its bad location.

Is this right?

Even more serious problem for us are long distance transportations. We are transporting berries on our cost to our inviting company to their berry assembly point which is located sometimes hundreds kilometers far away from picking area.

We are losing this time from picking and pay the freight cost for these berries.

The apparently cheap accommodation from our invitator becomes very expensive for us finally.

It shouldn’t be the responsibility of a picker to transport berries all over the Finland for its invitator company.

We just don’t have an option if we like to come again to Finland next year for berry picking.

We would like to sell our berries freely near their picking place.

We could do that, if we could only come to Finland without an invitator.

When we are forced to drive over long distances it’s not only an economic issue for us, it’s about our safety as well. Tired driver can easily make a serious traffic accident.

Also, the price from berries is not always right for us. Money is coming to us through some middlemen. In many cases pickers also don’t get their money on correct amounts to Thailand.

Other pickers are getting their money always on cash. Why can’t we also have the same? We wouldn’t have this problem either if we wouldn’t have the invitator.

The most important issue for the picker, which is money back home, we start to gather at the end part of the season, because in the beginning we are paying the traveling cost.

Most of the companies are keeping us in Finland only around 70 days, so we will not have too many days time to gather our money back home.

This is also the reason why so many pickers go back home without any money. A picker can not decide himself for how long he would like to stay in Finland. Most of the pickers would like to stay longer than what the company orders. Until the end of the berry and mushroom season.

This way we could come and stay with a minimum risk and go back home with a maximum possible money back home. Again, our problem is that we are forced to have an invitor.

Lots of pickers have relationships already to Finland.

The way how authorities could help us in these matters while we are applying visas, is they could give us a list of some possible accommodation providers and a list of companies who are renting cars and a list of berry and mushroom buyers.

From this list pickers could go and select the best suitable for him.

All Thai-pickers can use a mobile phone and provide all necessary services for him.

We are poor, but not dumb and helpless and not on a need of a guardian. We want to decide ourselves on our own things the way a free man can do.

For those who would like to come again to Finland on a next year cannot act according their own benefit, because they need to have an invitator in the future. So, they have to stay loyal only for this.

In Thailand, we have to give our passport to some recruiter, who is bargaining with them to different company coordinators. Sometimes finally a picker doesn’t even know himself with whom he will travel to Finland.

Lots of pickers would like to apply their visas themselves or use some travel agency for that, but it’s not possible for them now. If some will do, they will get a negative visa decision automatically. Without some company coordinator it’s not possible to have a visa to go picking berries in Finland.

Why some other people can have a visa to Finland without a recruiter, but we cannot have?

Without an inviting company, which has a quota of pickers a Thai picker cannot have a visa to Finland to pick berries in there. And only few companies have this quota nowadays. This thing should be changed now. We should have our visa without any inviter to avoid so many problems.

Pickers that are coming elsewhere can act freely, but Thais can’t. We wonder why is it so?

To avoid problems authorities should reject unsuitable persons out from travelers and let real pickers freely select their partners in Finland

Without service providers and berry buyers we will not be left out. This is not our fear, because there is high demand of real pickers in Finland.

We still would like to come to pick berries in Finland and it is superior thing to us when we are allowed to do it freely.

What do we want?

Better income for Thai pickers.

We want the inviting policy of Thai berry pickers to be changed.

It is important that pickers are telling to authorities themselves what do they want now to be changed.

All legal rights for pickers in Finland should cover also for Thai pickers.

1. A picker should have right to sell his collected berries or other products such as mushrooms to a party that is really his own choice.

2. A picker should have right to pick that product that is the most profitable for him at each moment of the season.

3. A picker should actually have the choice of choosing his accommodation provider himself.

4. A picker should actually have the choice of choosing his rent vehicle provider.

5. A picker should be allowed to move freely and accomodate anywhere he wants with anyone in Finland

6. All pickers should be allowed to stay in Finland for the whole 90 days depending on pickers own choice.

7. A picker should get the payment from his products by cash, not through any middleman in Thailand, like it happens nowadays in most of the cases.

8. All berry buying points should be open to all operators in berry branch. All companies should have right to come in berry camps to buy berries or other products such as mushroom directly from pickers.

9. A Finnish berry company can't be a money lender for a picker or be somehow guarantor for pickers depts. This way a picker can not be seen to be on dependency position to a Finnish berry company. This way a picker dares to sell his berries himself to the chosen party.

10. A visa must be granted for a picker to Finland without an invitation from a Finnish berry company. Finnish law does not prevent this. Without an invitator, a picker can earn more money and have lower risk of failure because on that case no one can give orders to a picker.

11. A picker should have have a right to contact the Embassy of Finland in Thailand without a corrdinator in between, if he wants so, when he is applying for a berry picker visa to Finland.

Based on Thaipickers (video), Thaipickers (a brief)

Read more about Thai berry pickers in Finland: ScandAsia, Yle, SAK - The Central Organization of Finnish Trade Unions

The North Observer

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