Akihito Teramura / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer
With farmland laid waste by last month's tsunami and radioactive substances spreading from a crippled nuclear power plant, farmers in the Tohoku and Kanto regions are struggling to regain some normality to their lives.
Rice farmers need to start planting soon for the new season, but many of them have been unable to make any plans as the entire picture of the damage caused by the disaster remains unclear.
According to the Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry, the tsunami inundated about 23,600 hectares of farmland in the Tohoku and Kanto regions--about four times the area within the JR Yamanote Line in Tokyo.
Miyagi Prefecture suffered the worst damage, with 15,000 hectares of farmland in five cities flooded by seawater--more than 50 percent of the total farmland in those cities. Shichigahamamachi was the hardest hit city with more than 90 percent of its farmland inundated.
According to the ministry, it is difficult to restore farmland once it has been flooded by seawater. Tsunami swept the topsoil out to sea, replacing it with rubble from destroyed communities, and left pools of seawater on many farms. The salt left behind by the seawater will affect the growth of crops.
"It will take more than a year to restore farmland inundated by tsunami," an official of an agricultural cooperative in Sendai said.
Other problems include soil liquefaction and cracks caused by the earthquake. This kind of damage has affected more than 9,000 farms and irrigation facilities in the Tohoku, Kanto, Koshinetsu and Tokai regions.
The crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant also has had a serious impact on farmers.
The government has instructed Fukushima, Ibaraki, Tochigi and Gunma prefectures to halt shipments of some agricultural products after detecting radioactive substances at levels exceeding limits set by the Food Sanitation Law. Radioactive substances exceeding these limits were also detected in some farm products in Chiba Prefecture and Tokyo, prompting some farmers to voluntarily halt shipments.
The possibility of land being contaminated by radioactive substances is also casting a shadow on agriculture. According to the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry, high-level radioactive substances were detected in the soil in Fukushima Prefecture.
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Rice planting affected
Farmers in affected areas in the Tohoku region have temporarily suspended farmwork, even though the rice-planting season is approaching.
On Wednesday, agricultural cooperatives in Miyagi Prefecture held a meeting to discuss whether to move rice production targets allotted to farmers in tsunami-stricken areas to those unaffected by the disaster. However, no decisions were reached because they could not determine what farmland was unaffected by the March 11 disaster. Agricultural cooperatives said they would check further on the damage caused by the earthquake and tsunami.
The Fukushima prefectural government has asked farmers to suspend farming programs until soil tests have been completed.
Rice farmers in Miyagi, Fukushima, and Iwate prefectures plan to delay planting as long as possible. However, the Fukushima prefectural government said farmers need to start preparing rice seedlings by late April at the latest.
Agricultural cooperatives in the three prefectures will have to reorganize production targets of rice allotted to farmers by this deadline after studying damage caused by the disaster. If they fail to do so, the rice production plans of the three prefectures and the central government may be affected significantly.
(Apr. 1, 2011)
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