After a spate of rice crops were found with cesium levels exceeding safety limits, the Fukushima prefectural government has come under fire for insufficient testing and initial announcements that this year's harvest was safe.
After a spate of rice crops were found with cesium levels exceeding safety limits, the Fukushima prefectural government has come under fire for insufficient testing and initial announcements that this year's harvest was safe.
The central government banned rice shipments from two districts in Date, Fukushima Prefecture, on Dec. 9, bringing the total number of districts prohibited from shipping rice to seven in the cities of Fukushima, Date and Nihonmatsu.
Rice from one district in Date was found to be contaminated with 1,240 becquerels of cesium per kilogram on Dec. 8, while 580 becquerels was found in another batch. The national safety limit is 500 becquerels.
The shipment ban was extended to kiwi fruit grown in Soma and Minami-Soma, some of which was found to contain 560 becquerels to 1,120 becquerels of cesium per kilogram.
Contaminated rice with cesium levels exceeding national safety standards was first found in the prefecture, home to the stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, in the middle of last month. The first case was discovered after a farmer from the Onami district in the prefectural capital took his harvest, which was for personal consumption, to a local agricultural cooperative for radiation tests.
The discovery that his crop was heavily contaminated prompted emergency inspections in other districts, which turned up contaminated crops in Date and Nihonmatsu. The findings came after Fukushima Governor Yuhei Sato issued a declaration of safety for this year's harvest on Oct. 12, after readings of crops from designated areas in the prefecture fell within national safety standards.
At Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s headquarters in Tokyo on Dec. 9, Keiichi Miho, the mayor of Nihonmatsu, demanded that the utility buy up the city's entire rice harvest.
Miho made the same request to Michihiko Kano, the agricultural minister.
"We want to think about what we can do as the government," Kano was quoted as replying.
Sato apologized on Dec. 8 for the inadequate checks by the prefectural government.
"I regret that I did not seek diverse expert opinions," he said.
Sato admitted that he was hoping that the checks would enable the early shipment of rice from the prefecture. The soil inspections in April to determine if rice paddies were not heavily polluted were only conducted in one location in each municipality.
Farmers planted rice after receiving clearance from the central and prefectural governments. Checks for harvested rice were more expansive, but were generally conducted only in two locations per municipality.
A prefectural official admitted that a much wider area should have been tested.
"We conducted the checks after evaluating how to ensure both the safety of rice and an early shipment," the official said. "But we cannot help but admit that our inspections were inadequate."
In Nihonmatsu, residents took rice intended for their personal consumption to the city hall, which is fully booked up for testing until January. The city calls for the inspection of every single bag of rice in the prefecture, but the prefectural government does not have sufficient capacity to achieve that.
It would take officials 57 years to check every single bag at the current pace of 4,000 bags a week, a prefectural official said.