Consumers Worry That Domestic Harvest Could Be Contaminated With Radiation
TOKYO—Japanese consumers typically prefer fresh, home-grown rice, but that isn't true this year.
Demand has surged for remaining supplies of last year's harvest of
the country's staple crop, as well as for foreign-grown grains. Shoppers
worry that the latest domestic harvest may be contaminated with
radiation from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident.
Farmers last month harvested
rice in Sayo city, Hyogo prefecture. Demand has surged for supplies of
last year's harvest of Japan's staple crop.
In Hyogo prefecture in western Japan,
rice-store owner Toshikazu Nishira said online orders for U.S.-grown
organic rice have jumped, despite steep tariffs on rice imports designed
to protect the domestic market. In August, the orders, mostly from
eastern Japan, were nearly 20 times more than normal, as people who
couldn't find domestic rice from last year ordered imported rice, Mr.
Nishira said.
"For the first time, Japanese people seem to be worried about
domestic rice," said Mr. Nishira, who has been running the business for
almost 30 years. "I have no idea how long this will last, and how it
might turn out."
Fukushima prefecture, showered with radiation in March, is the
fourth-largest rice-producing region in Japan. It is also a big supplier
for Tokyo, where government tests for rice contamination are expected
to be largely finished next week.
So far, one tested batch has turned up contamination near levels
triggering a sales ban. But consumer advocates and others criticize the
government's testing method.
Mariko Sano, secretary-general of Tokyo-based consumer group
Shufuren, said the amount of contamination allowed is too high, because
it is the same level for rice—which Japanese consume in quantities seven
times greater than Americans—as it is for beef and other types of food
eaten in smaller quantities. "The government seems to only tighten its
rules after problems have occurred, and that is creating mistrust among
consumers," she said.
Japan has gone through other food-safety scares since the nuclear
accident, particularly the discovery this summer that contaminated beef
had escaped testing and had been consumed throughout the country.
But the safety of rice is particularly important in Japan, a country
where people pay as much as $1,000 for rice cookers flecked with silver,
gold or diamond dust that promise to steam up the perfect bowl.
"Rice is more than just food," said Kazuhiko Kanno, who oversees
Fukushima's testing as head of the prefectural government's rice-farming
section. "It occupies a special place in Japan's culture and history."
Mr. Kanno said he has been deluged by calls from worried consumers,
including a woman from Tokyo who asked whether it was safe to feed her
children rice that her father-in-law sends from Fukushima. Mr. Kanno
explained that the prefecture will forbid shipments—even as gifts—from
areas found to have high levels of contamination.
Japanese officials conducted the first round of tests on rice fields
in April, starting with one field per municipality in the areas
surrounding the reactors, then increasing the number of test spots
wherever they found elevated levels of radioactive cesium, the most
common pollutant. The agriculture ministry set the limit for harvested
rice at 500 bequerels per kilogram, and—estimating that up to 10% of the
cesium in the soil would be transferred to the rice plant—banned
cultivation in fields found to have more than 5,000 becquerels of cesium
per kilogram of soil.
Now, Mr. Kanno's section is screening harvested grains. It has found
high cesium levels from one area—the city of Nihonmatsu, about 34 miles
from the plant—where the rice registered the maximum allowable 500
becquerels per kilogram.
That single discovery is troubling some experts, who say it raises
questions about the government's testing model. Nihonmatsu's fields
logged only 3,000 becquerels per kilogram of radioactive cesium, meaning
something else—perhaps contaminated water or direct contact between the
rice plants and polluted mud—had boosted levels more than expected,
said Keiko Tagami, a researcher at Japan's National Institute of
Radiological Sciences who specializes in studying how radiation spreads
through the environment.
The government ought to look for other such occurrences, she said.
"They need to test more even if it means cutting into time for sleep,"
said Ms. Tagami.
Mr. Kanno said Fukushima prefecture is conducting additional tests in
areas where conditions and surroundings are similar to those in
Nihonmatsu.
But consumers appear wary. Big rice
buyers, such as processing plants and wholesalers, haven't put in orders
for Fukushima rice, according to a manager in the Fukushima branch of
Japan's biggest agricultural cooperative. Fukushima's farmers likely
won't be able to sell their rice unless they can assure buyers, through
more testing, that it is safe, he said, though the co-op doesn't have
the funds.
Demand for rice harvested last year—before the accident—soared in
August as people stockpiled the pre-March 11 grain, said a manager at a
big rice wholesaler. Now, some restaurants in eastern Japan are taking
the unusual step of looking into purchases from western Japan, he said. A
manager at a big national sushi chain that normally buys rice from
Fukushima said it may not this year, especially after customers started
calling its shops asking from where they buy their rice.
The price of rice futures contracts traded on the Tokyo Grain
Exchange has plunged since September, when the goods to be delivered
switched to this year's harvest from last year's, said Takuo Nanahara, a
trader at commodities broker Yutaka Shoji Co. "Investors are waiting to
see what happens" with the rice tests, he said.
Negotiations
are now under way with the WFP to enter into a working arrangement for
rice exports to the world's largest, hunger-battling humanitarian
agency, Finance Ministry Secretary Dr. P.B. Jayasundara revealed at a
meeting of exporters in Colombo this week.