Crisis Forces Japanese Farmers To Destroy Crops

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.gpb.org/news/2011/03/24/crisis-forces-japanese-farmers-to-destroy-crops

Thu., March 24, 2011 4:39pm (EDT)

Crisis Forces Japanese Farmers To Destroy Crops

By Richard Harris

The Japanese government is asking people not to eat spinach, parsley and other produce grown near the damaged power plant because some is tainted with radiation. Dairy farmers are also dumping their milk, and drinking water has been a problem in some locations, including briefly Tokyo.

But the biggest impact following the nuclear disaster has been in the region where these foods are produced. One might expect that reports of food contaminated with radiation would create panic in Japan, but step into the Ecos grocery store in Ibaraki Prefecture, and nothing seems to be amiss.

Produce manager Kenki Utsuno is restocking the shelves with a leafy green called komatsuna. Even though this region has been hit with traces of radiation, the shelves here are full of cabbage, radishes, many different types of mushrooms, even spinach. But it's not from around here.

…

Nagashima is standing outside a row of six long greenhouses. In January, he planted 30,000 spinach plants in each one. His farm wasn't tested, so he doesn't even know if the plants are contaminated with radiation. But the government said all spinach from Ibaraki Prefecture needs to be destroyed.

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[midnight]

1. I worry about this huge loss of food for the Japanese and others throughout the world.

We are experience great shock waves of speculator terrorism on our food prices, now compound this with food having to be destroyed... This is going to be extremely difficult..... I hope there are some savvy farming techniques being put into place to curtail all this negative stresses on the worlds food supply.....

[kristopher]

5. They export very little food. nt

[Lucinda]

2. Yet more awful news and loss.

:( TY for the link.

[jwirr]

3. And if they have to destroy this crop does that mean that there is

problems with the soil? If so this is not going to be the last crop failure.

[Hatchling]

4. I hope they don't plan to burn it.

Where are they going to dump all that radioactive food safely?