South Korean and North Korean farmers have teamed up to cultivate strawberries as part of the so-called unification strawberries project that began in 2006.

The joint strawberry cultivation is considered the first inter-Korean exchange in agriculture.

Strawberry plants that were sent to North Korea in April of last year increased by ten times in number and were then transplanted back to South Korea in September.

The harvest of the strawberries has begun four months after the transplant took place.

Fifty-thousand strawberry plants were shipped from the North Korean port of Nampo to Incheon last year. But a strain of virus was found during quarantine and all of the plants were destroyed.

The next shipment of some 100-thousand strawberry plants was successfully brought back to the South this year.

Fifty tons of unification strawberries will be harvested by May for sale throughout South Korea.