Japan Agriculture News

From Bloomberg:

Farmers in Fukushima prefecture, Japan’s fourth-biggest rice producer, may not plant the grain this year after tainted soil was discovered near a crippled nuclear plant leaking radiation.
“Farmers cannot grow anything without assurance from the government that their paddies are safe for food production,” Takuo Ichiya, agricultural production manager at the Central Union of Agricultural Cooperatives, Japan’s largest farmers group, said today in an interview. “Concerns about radioactive contamination may hinder planting not only in Fukushima but neighboring prefectures too.”

and in another Bloomberg story:

Japan has asked farmers to keep cows and cattle in barns as radioactive contamination of milk spread from Fukushima prefecture, where high radiation levels and fires have hampered repairs of a crippled nuclear plant.
“To prevent milk contamination, we are advising farmers that cows should be barred from grazing, kept inside barns and fed with grass harvested before the nuclear plant accident,” said Mitsuhiro Honda at the milk and dairy products division of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. “We are not concerned about the safety of beef as the meat now on the market came from animals born more than two years ago.”
Japan has restricted raw-milk shipments from Fukushima and neighboring Ibaraki prefecture after tainted products were discovered through random testing.