Officials of the Tokyo metropolitan government said on July 15 that beef from one head of cattle from the Asakawa ranch was found to have cesium levels of 650 becquerels per kilogram, which exceeds the government standard of 500 becquerels.
Officials of the Tokyo metropolitan government said on July 15 that beef from one head of cattle from the Asakawa ranch was found to have cesium levels of 650 becquerels per kilogram, which exceeds the government standard of 500 becquerels.
As a result, shipments of beef from Fukushima Prefecture will likely be suspended.
Also, Fukushima prefectural government officials said on July 14 that straw used as feed by a cattle farmer in Asakawa, Fukushima Prefecture, had about 73 times the government standard for radioactive cesium,
About 42 cattle were sent to market from the farm, which is about 60 kilometers from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. Officials from the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare are trying to track down beef sent to Tokyo, Yokohama, Sendai and Chiba Prefecture. The discovery of such high levels of radioactive cesium in a farm distant from the stricken nuclear plant has forced the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries to begin an emergency investigation into straw storage methods on 27,000 farms in the Tohoku and Kanto regions.
Seven prefectures--Iwate, Miyagi, Tochigi, Ibaraki, Gunma, Saitama and Chiba--will be covered by the new study.
The Asakawa farm was too far from the Fukushima plant to be subject to a prefectural government testing regime that checked animals for radiation before they were sent to market.
Sources said prefectural government officials will now ask all 3,000 or so cattle breeders in the prefecture not to ship their cattle. The request is expected to be made by July 18.
The latest alert comes after a separate discovery of excessive levels of cesium in beef from cattle from Minami-Soma, Fukushima Prefecture.
The farmer in Asakawa gave the straw to cattle on the farm from April. Of the 42 head of cattle shipped from the farm, 14 went to Yokohama, 13 to Tokyo, 10 to Sendai and five to Chiba Prefecture.
Officials of the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare have asked officials of the local governments where the cattle was shipped to confirm the distribution routes of the beef and to seize any beef that has not been sold.
If any of the beef is found to have cesium levels that exceed government standards, ministry officials will publicize the identification numbers of the cattle shipped from the Asakawa ranch.
According to Fukushima prefectural government officials, the straw was found to have as much as 22,045 becquerels per kilogram of radioactive cesium. That figure is about 73 times the standard of 300 becquerels.
The straw was obtained from a rice farmer in nearby Shirakawa who cut the straw from rice paddies between March 15 and 20, shortly after the nuclear accident at the Fukushima plant. It was sold to four ranchers in Asakawa.
While the straw was fed to cattle from early April, the Asakawa farmer said seven head of cattle did not receive the contaminated straw.
Fukushima prefectural government officials started checking farms in the prefecture following the detection of excessive cesium in beef from 11 cattle shipped from Minami-Soma. The straw tested in Minami-Soma was found to have as much as 17,000 becquerels of cesium, close to the level found in the latest case.
The beef from Minami-Soma was found to have about 3,000 becquerels of cesium. Experts said eating the beef would not immediately lead to health problems.