http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/19/world/asia/19beef.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha22

 

July 18, 2011

Radiation-Tainted Beef Spreads Through Japan’s Markets

By HIROKO TABUCHI

MINAMISOMA, Japan — Even after explosions rocked the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, Kuniaki Sato, who raises cattle here about 20 miles from the crippled complex, said he had received no clear warning from the government about the possible dangers of radiation to his herd.

So six weeks after the accident, on April 23, he shipped 12 of his prized cattle from his farm to market.

Now Japanese agricultural officials say meat from more than 500 cattle that were likely to have been contaminated with radioactive cesium has made its way to supermarkets and restaurants across Japan in recent weeks. Officials say the cattle ate hay that had been stored outside and exposed to radiation.

“I was a little worried, but we had to sell when we could,” said Mr. Sato, whose cattle were not fed hay and so were unlikely to have been contaminated.

When a precautionary order to halt all farm shipments was lifted soon after the accident, area farmers took it as a go-ahead sign, he said. “We all resumed shipments,” he said. “Of course we did.”

The revelations by the government this month that contaminated meat reached Japanese markets have intensified food safety concerns in Japan, underscoring the government’s inability to control the spread of radioactive material into the nation’s food.

Radioactive material has been detected in a range of produce, including spinach, tea leaves, milk and fish. Contaminated hay has been found at farms more than 85 miles from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi plant, suggesting that the radioactive fallout has reached a wider area than first suspected.

Still, because of a severe shortage of testing equipment, and local governments that are still swamped with disaster relief, only a small percentage of farm products grown in the region get checked for radiation.

The government has suspended agricultural shipments from within a radius of about 12 miles around the Fukushima plant, as well as a number of other identified radiation “hot spots.” But farms outside those areas, even those relatively close to the plant, have faced few restrictions in shipping their produce.

For months the government balked at placing a wider ban on produce from the Fukushima region despite sporadic discoveries of contaminated produce, for fear of bringing fresh confusion in the disaster-stricken area, putting thousands more people out of work and adding to growing compensation claims for Tokyo Electric Power, which operates the Fukushima plant.

Now, with the number of contamination cases rising, the government is finally moving to ban beef shipments from Fukushima Prefecture, an area of 5,300 square miles, slightly smaller than Connecticut. Yukio Edano, the chief cabinet secretary, said Tuesday that the government was in the “final stages” of coordinating such a ban and an announcement could come later that day.

Fukushima Prefecture has also said it issued instructions in late March warning farmers to make sure hay was stored indoors, to prevent possible contamination from rain. But many farmers said they were not aware of such a directive.

Cattle from some areas with high radiation readings, including here in Minamisoma, a city in Fukushima Prefecture, had been checked for radiation on the surface of their skins before being shipped to market. But those checks do not sufficiently measure whether cattle have been exposed to radiation internally by eating contaminated feed, officials say.

Fukushima government officials said they were starting inspections of all 4,000 or so cattle farms in the prefecture to make sure that none of them was using radioactive hay. Meanwhile, ranchers have been asked to comply with a new voluntary shipment ban.

This month, officials testing hay fed to cattle at a ranch in Minamisoma detected radioactive cesium 250 times above Japan’s official limit. Beef from that farm contained almost five times the official limit.

Officials suspect that the hay was stored outside and became tainted with rainwater, which can carry radioactive elements in the atmosphere as it falls. Though hay is not usually fed to cattle here, a feed-supply shortage after the March 11 quake and tsunami forced some farms to substitute it for other food.

Some farmers in the region say that they welcome tougher checks, and that cattle can still be shipped from Fukushima if precautions are taken against radiation exposure.

Yuta Furuyama, who has 233 cattle in Minamisoma, is certain his herd is clean. His cattle are kept indoors, and their feed is stored in thick plastic bags, out of the rain. He said he was careful to not even bring tools that he has used outside into the cowshed, for fear of contaminating his herd, which he is eager to have tested for radiation so that his cattle can be safely sold later this year.

“I hope they will finally step up the checks,” he said. “If the government had given proper advice and done proper tests in the first place, things wouldn’t have gotten out of hand.”

Japanese government officials insist that even at levels above government limits, radioactive cesium will not have an immediate effect on health. Longer-term effects are less known, however. Many experts say that prolonged exposure to radiation can lead to a higher incidence of cancers like leukemia.

“If you eat it every day, it might be a problem,” Goshi Hosono, the minister in charge of the nuclear issue, said last week. “But if you eat just a little, there would be no big effect on your health.”

Experts, however, disagree on what the effects may be of exposure to radiation above the limits but at low doses.

Some farms have sold off their herds in recent weeks, at even lower prices than the Fukushima label now fetches. On a large cattle farm in the neighboring village of Iitate, the cowsheds lie eerily empty. Since the accident, the farm rushed to sell off its 312 cows, said Akio Takahashi, who has worked there for 23 years.

After March 11, cattle sold for about $6,330 a head, about a third less than the price before the quake, he said. Then as radiation fears increased, prices plummeted further.

Panicked, the farm decided to sell its remaining 180 cattle all at once in early July, including calves still not ready for market, at rock-bottom prices to farms outside Fukushima. Those cattle were screened for radiation, Mr. Takahashi said.

When the cattle were gone, Mr. Takahashi was let go. He is now looking for a city job.

“It’s finished,” he said. “Nobody will ever want to eat beef from Fukushima again.”

Max Hodges contributed research.

© 2011 The New York Times Company

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