Japan’s food chain threatened as radiation spreads!
TOKYO, Japan - July 25, 2011 - Radiation fallout from the wrecked Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant poses a growing threat to Japan’s food chain, as unsafe levels of cesium found in beef on supermarket shelves were also detected in more vegetables and in the ocean.
More than 2,600 cattle have been contaminated, Kyodo News reported on July 23, after the Miyagi local government said 1,183 cattle at 58 farms were fed hay containing radioactive cesium before being shipped to meat markets.
Agriculture Minister Michihiko Kano has said officials didn’t foresee that farmers might ship contaminated hay to cattle ranchers. That highlights the government’s inability to think ahead and act, said Mariko Sano, secretary general for Shufuren, a housewives organization in Tokyo. “The government is so slow to move,” Sano said. “They’ve done little to ensure food safety.”
Aeon Co., Japan’s largest supermarket chain, said today that 9,056 lbs. of beef suspected of being contaminated were inadvertently put on sale at 174 stores across Japan. Supermarkets started testing beef after the Tokyo Metropolitan Government found radioactive cesium in slaughtered cattle earlier this month.
On July 19, the government banned cattle shipments from Fukushima prefecture, though not before some had been slaughtered and shipped to supermarkets. A ban on shiitake mushrooms from another part of Fukushima was introduced on July 23 because of cesium levels, the health ministry said.
“Some areas still have high radiation dosages and if you also eat products from these areas, you’ll get a considerable amount of radiation,” said Sentaro Takahashi, a professor of radiation control at Kyoto University in western Japan. “This is why the government needs to do something fast.”
Japan has no centralized system to check for radiation contamination of food, leaving local authorities and farmers conducting voluntary tests. Products including spinach, mushrooms, bamboo shoots, tea, milk, plums, and fish have been found contaminated with cesium and iodine as far as 225 miles away from the Fukushima Daiichi plant.
