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Spinach with radioactive iodine 27 times more than the government-regulated limit was found in the city of Hitachi in Ibaraki Prefecture, more than 100 kilometers south of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, but the radiation levels do not affect human health, local authorities said Sunday. The growing public concern over the safety of farm products prompted the government the same day to consider instructing local authorities to halt the shipment of relevant produce within a prefecture if produce made there is found containing radioactive substances at levels exceeding regulation, government sources said. Currently, prefectural governments decide whether to ask municipalities to voluntarily halt shipment of contaminated products. In 1 kilogram of spinach grown in open air in the city, 54,000 becquerels of iodine was detected, exceeding the 2,000 becquerel limit preliminarily set by the government under the food sanitation law, the Ibaraki prefectural government said. The level of cesium in the spinach grown in the city was also higher at 1,931 becquerels, compared to the limit of 500 becquerels.