Fukushima Rice
Japanese eat rice, but not wheat products, as the principal food, at least, till lately.
All over Japan, most of agricultural land is used for rice farming.
So, there are many paddy fields in Fukushima Prefecture, too. But, almost half of those rice fields faced the nuclear threat from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. So, last year some rice harvested in Fukushima showed a radiation dosage level higher than a provisional allowable level for safety of 500 Bq/kg. As a result, 17,000 tons of rice harvested in Fukushima last year were stopped from delivery to be stored in special store buildings.
So, this year the Prefectural office of Fukushima decided to test all the rice bags (30kg each) produced in the prefecture to measure a radiation dosage.
For this purpose they purchased 190 units of special test devices. They plan to test all the rice bags (12 million bags) of rice produced in Fukushima Prefecture.
Fukushima rice is sold, for example, at 5,000 yen ($60) per 5 kg in a department store in Tokyo.
Further, the general agricultural study center of Fukushima found that existence of potassium in the ground has an effect of preventing radioactive cesium from mingling into the rice plant. Many farmers sprinkled potassium into their rice fields.
Peaches and other agricultural products produced in Fukushima Prefecture are also delivered to market after radioactive checks from Fukushima.
Radiation Doses in Fukushima Prefecture as of September 2:
Iitate 0.824 uSv/h
Minami-soma 0.38 uSv
Fukushima City 0.69 uSv/h
Koriyama 0.51 uSv/h
Shirakawa 0.21 uSv/h
Iwaki 0.10 uSv/h
Aizu-wakamatsu 0.10 uSv/h
(Tokyo 0.07 uSv/h, London 0.08 uSv/h)
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Mar 9:3 And his raiment became shining, exceeding white as snow; so as no fuller on earth can white them.