A government panel will call for broad compensation to farmers and fishermen for damages to their harvests caused by the accident at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
A government panel will call for broad compensation to farmers and fishermen for damages to their harvests caused by the accident at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
According to guidelines to be adopted April 28, compensation will be provided to farmers and fishermen who had to suspend shipments based on government orders or voluntarily canceled shipments based on local government requests.
The guidelines did not include monetary figures.
The panel also plans to call for compensation for damages caused by rumors of radioactive contamination in successive guidelines. It means that compensation will be provided for products or areas that were not covered by government orders to suspend shipments. Specifics will be decided later.
One proposal is to provide compensation for agricultural produce in Fukushima, Ibaraki, Tochigi, Gunma and Chiba prefectures because shipments of some items from certain areas in these prefectures were ordered suspended.
In principle, the name of a prefecture--not an area or a municipality--is given as the place of origin for food products.
For example, consumers cannot tell whether a vegetable from Fukushima Prefecture is from an area subject to suspension orders.
The panel also plans to call for compensation for evacuees for emotional distress. Although it is difficult to calculate compensation payments, the panel is expected to classify eligible recipients into several groups, depending on where they were evacuated or how long.
Tokyo Electric Power Co., the plant's operator, will provide provisional compensation based on the guidelines.
The panel, made up of academic experts, was formed based on the law concerning compensation for nuclear accidents.
According to the guidelines, farmers will also be compensated for costs to dispose of agricultural produce they were not able to ship.
Retailers will receive compensation for lost sales if they stocked items whose shipments were suspended and could not sell them.
The first guidelines also covered compensation for costs that people who were ordered to evacuate or stay indoors incurred, such as evacuation costs, lost sales and lost salaries.