Finding that radiation-tainted straw was produced far from nuclear plant causes shock Prefectural officials interview livestock farmers after radioactive cesium was detected in cattle raised in Minamisoma, Fukushima Prefecture, on July 10. (Mainichi)
Revelations that radiation-contaminated rice straw used as feed for beef cattle was produced far away from the crippled Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant have sent shockwaves through the livestock farming community in Fukushima Prefecture.
Consumers have also been filled with a sense of growing distrust in the government over delays in responding to the problem of radiation-tainted beef.
Forty-two beef cows that ate rice straw contaminated with radioactive cesium were found to have been shipped from a livestock farm in the Fukushima Prefecture town of Asakawa from April 8. The rice straw had been supplied by a farmer in Shirakawa, about 75 kilometers away from the tsunami-hit nuclear power station.
"It's unbelievable that this (contamination) occurred in an area so far away from the nuclear plant," said a 34-year-old man who has run a livestock farm in Minamisoma, Fukushima Prefecture, for nearly 10 years.
On July 8 the ...
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20110715p2a00m0na002000c.htmlFarm ships 42 cows fed irradiated straw
Another town in Fukushima has tainted beefKyodo
FUKUSHIMA — The Fukushima Prefectural Government said a farm in the town of Asakawa shipped 42 cows to Tokyo and other places after feeding them straw containing high levels of radioactive cesium, and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government said Friday it found a high level of cesium in beef produced from some of the cattle.
Miyagi Prefecture said Friday it found 3,600 becquerels of cesium per kilogram in straw checks at three places in the prefecture. Following the discovery, the prefecture ordered about 900 farms in the prefecture not to feed their cows straw harvested after March 11.
The 42 cows from Asakawa were shipped between April 8 and July 6: 14 were taken to Yokohama, 13 to Tokyo, 10 to Sendai and five to Chiba Prefecture, the Fukushima government said.
The straw was found to contain up to 97,000 becquerels of cesium per kilogram, about 73 times the government limit. It was cut last year by a rice farm in Shirakawa, Fukushima Prefecture, and was left in an open field.
Following Fukushima's announcement...
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