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In this rare case, I am actually with the farmer who is standing up to the authorities.The evacuation-ready zone was abolished on September 30 and the residents who evacuated are supposed to go back. However, the authorities (the national government and the Fukushima prefectural government) prohibited farmers in the evacuation zones (evacuation-ready, planned evacuation, and no-entry) from growing rice this year. It was a blanket ban on growing rice in these zones regardless of the density of radioactive materials in the soil, while areas outside the evacuation zones but with potentially high levels of radioactive materials in the soil were allowed to be cultivated for rice with only a cursory soil monitoring test.This farmer defied the arbitrary government order, grew rice and harvested. He has declared he wants sell it.From Yomiuri Shinbun (10/30/2011):

On October 28, the Fukushima prefectural government advised a farmer (age 58) in Miyakoji-machi in Tamura City to discard the rice he harvested, based on the Food Control Law, because the farmer had grown and harvested the rice in the area designated as "emergency evacuation-ready zone" after the nuclear plant accident.

The farmer has said no.

It is unconfirmed information, which may not be confirmed at all even if it is true as it may have been the "administrative guidance" from the government without a formal document. Plausible deniability has been one of Japan's forte over hundreds of years if not thousand. A resident of Fukushima City, responding to one of the tweets about why the farmers in Fukushima farmed at all this year and continue to sell produce even when they are aware that the land is heavily contaminated with radioactive fallout from Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant, says the following:

Everyone was saying "We can't farm this year". Then the national government said to them, "Farm as usual".She also says in an earlier tweet:

I live in Fukushima City. None of the people around me eat [Fukushima produce]. Even the farmers say "We can't eat this year['s produce]". I personally believe it's "we can't eat from now on".Vegetables, meat, rice that even some people in Fukushima don't eat are being promoted and sold all over Japan.

From TV Asahi's "Hodo Station" on July 26, in the segment that discusses the lifetime limit of 100 millisieverts radiation.

A chicken farmer in Kawamata-machi in Fukushima Prefecture has brought his eggs to a volunteer testing station in Fukushima City. After 20 minutes of testing, 60 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium is detected from the eggs.Disappointed, the farmer says, "I don't know what to say to my customers. It's much lower than the provisional safety limit in Japan, but if I compare the number to the safety limit in Ukraine it is extraordinary..."

The reporter asks the farmer, "What is the safety limit in Ukraine?"6 becquerels/kg, he tells the reporter.The man who runs the station says, "For these farmers, the provisional safety limit in Japan is just too loose."

Rice farmers near Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear plant will impose radiation safety limits that will only clear grains with levels so low as to be virtually undetectable after government-set standards were viewed as too lenient, curbing sales. Farmers now completing the harvest in areas affected by fallout from the nuclear station are struggling to find buyers amid doubts about cesium limits, which are less stringent than in livestock feed. No samples have been found exceeding the official limits. A self-imposed, near-zero limit on radiation in rice may help spur sales from Fukushima, which was the fourth-largest producer in Japan last year, representing about 5 percent of the total harvest. The prefectural office of Zen-Noh, Japan’s biggest farmers group, plans to only ship cesium-free rice to address safety concerns, as does the National Confederation of Farmers Movements, which includes about 30,000 producers nationwide.

“We advise our members to test their rice for radiation and sell only if results show no cesium is detected,” said Yoshitaka Mashima, vice chairman of the confederation. The government has tried to “hide inconvenient information, which is deepening consumer distrust.” The near-zero limit was set as very low levels of cesium are hard to detect. Testing equipment in Japan is unable to verify levels of cesium in food below 5 becquerels a kilogram, according to Mashima.

Demand for this year’s rice crop has also been weakened as consumers hoarded last year’s crop amid radiation concerns, Kimura said. Domestic food-rice inventories, excluding the government’s reserve, fell 16 percent to a three-year low of 1.82 million metric tons in June as consumers boosted purchases after the disaster. The volume is equal to 22 percent of Japanese rice demand in the year ended June 30.

Fukushima Prefecture announced on July 25 that radioactive cesium exceeding the provisional limit was detected from the wheat harvested at a farm in Hirono-machi [23 kilometers south of Fukushima I Nuke Plant] in Fukushima Prefecture. The prefectural government says the wheat hasn't been sold in the market. It is the first time that radioactive cesium exceeding the limit has been detected in wheat.

According to the prefectural government, 630 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium was found in a sample taken on July 19. The prefectural government has asked the farm to withhold shipment on a voluntary basis. Fukushima Prefecture ranks No. 25th in wheat production in Japan, with 651 tonnes produced last year.

Also, 720 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium has been detected in the rapeseeds harvested by a farm in Tamura City [41 kilometers west of Fukushima I Nuke Plant] in Fukushima. The rapeseeds haven't been shipped, and the prefectural government has asked the farm to withhold shipment on a voluntary basis.

Nuclear accidents could threaten not only the livelihoods and health of people living nearby but also relations between food producers and consumers. Victims of the ongoing Fukushima nuclear crisis are not only residents near the crippled nuclear plant who have been forced to evacuate from their affected neighborhoods. My news coverage of the contamination of foods with radioactive substances leaking from the tsunami-hit Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant has uncovered that the crisis has fundamentally damaged mutual trust between local food producers including farmers and consumers. It came to light on July 8 that some beef was contaminated with radioactive cesium. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government examined beef from cows shipped from Minamisoma, Fukushima Prefecture, and detected cesium in excess of the permissible level.

The number of beef cows confirmed to have been tainted with the radioactive material sharply increased. Furthermore, it was learned that some meat from these cows had already been shipped to various areas across the country and even consumed. The source of the cesium has turned out to be rice straw that had been given to the animals as feed. A notice that the national government had sent to livestock farmers following the nuclear accident made no mention to the possibility that rice straw could be contaminated with radioactive materials from the plant. In late September, I visited a farmer that had shipped the rice straw, only to be turned back just as I expected. A neighbor said the farmer used an in-house power generator to maintain his barn and constantly look after the cattle, while most local residents had fled the neighborhood and the delivery of daily necessities and supplies necessary for farming had been suspended. Nonetheless, he was criticized by some news organizations for being primarily responsible for the contamination of beef.

While banners and stickers saying, "Hang in there, Fukushima!" are spotted across the country, numerous harmful rumors on Fukushima products can be found online. There are many rumors that are discriminatory to Fukushima and other messages slandering Fukushima people on the Internet. However, Minamisoma farmers should definitely not be blamed for the contamination. Rather, they are victims of the nuclear crisis, just like consumers who are sensitive about invisible radiation. I have still been unable to find the right answer on what and how I should report to help restore the mutual trust between producers and consumers. (By Eisuke Inoue, Tokyo City News Department)

As well as killing thousands, Japan’s natural disasters caused a leak of dangerous amounts of radiation into the environment. Meanwhile, many of those who survived are struggling with their own nuclear nightmare. ­A triple disaster on a scale the world has never known caused damage, destruction and uncertainty, forcing tens of thousands of Japanese refugees to leave their lives behind and seek shelter anywhere they can.“Some people do evacuate,” says Komae Hosokawa, a nuclear sociologist. “But the problem is they are the minority and they have been accused by their neighbors, by their classmates and of course by official personnel that they are causing unfounded anxiety among people, which is not good.”Though primarily a move towards self-preservation, this idea of desertion is defined by many as characteristically un-Japanese and has earned those who have evacuated the dishonorable title of traitor.

“Of course is hard to hear that,” says Suenami Sato, one of the refugees. “We have family, neighbors… We think about our health, but in other words we ran away. We escaped because we are scared of radiation. But there is no example in the world of something similar and the consequences are still ongoing.” While those who have moved to shelters here in Tokyo are facing pressure to move back home there are others who have lost everything, cannot handle the overwhelming change and are facing even darker demons.Japan already has one of the highest suicide rates in the world, and following the disaster in March the government has issued a warning about a possible nationwide epidemic of depression.

“We hear some organic farmers committed suicide, because you know for organic farmers soil is everything,” says Komae Hosokawa “They nurture the good soil after many years of hard work and it is just contaminated in one night or two you know. So some farmers committed suicide and I am very sad to hear the news. And many other farmers are also very much depressed.”A recent national survey in Japan performed by Dr. Hirohito Hirose, a disaster psychology specialist, and his team shows that suicide rates in Japan have in fact increased in the months since the disaster compared to the same time frame in the previous two years, but the demographics are not what one might expect.“The rate increases not in the epicenter, disaster epicenter, but in the peripheral areas,” said Dr. Hirohito. “Because survivors who have to reconstruct their life, they have no time to [contemplate] suicide.”This disaster has certainly taken its toll on Japan’s economy and such constant reminders of an intense topic can harm the collective psyche of the people who live here as well.“Because of the tsunami disaster and the nuclear disaster many people have actually lost their jobs or their working conditions have crashed, so they have so many good reasons to commit suicide,” said Komae Hosokawa.

On September 16, Fukushima Prefecture announced its first result of the main survey of radioactive materials in the harvested rice. No radioactive cesium above the detection limit (between 5 to 10 becquerels/kg) was detected in the rice harvested between September 12 and 14 in 4 locations in Kitakata City, located in northwest Fukushima. Total 52 locations in the city are to be tested, and the results for the remaining locations will be announced later.

The prefectural government will allow the shipment of rice by the municipalities as long the density of radioactive cesium tests below the national provisional limit (500 becquerels/kg) in the designated locations within a city/town/village. [In case of Kitakata City, therefore] the September 16 survey result was not enough to allow the city to ship rice. Some Japanese consumers believe neither the report nor the Fukushima prefectural government. Their "baseless" suspicions include: They must be mixing last year's rice. Jiji Tsushin and Fukushima Prefecture, deadly lying combo. Personally, I think Jiji is better than Kyodo News.There are eye-witness report of sighting the last year's rice bags with proof of inspection from other prefectures piled up high at rice distributors and wholesalers in Fukushima.My suspicion: How many points did they measure? One rice paddy or two per town/village?

Kitakata City is located north in "Aizu" region of Fukushima Prefecture, the western one-third of the prefecture with less contamination than the rest of Fukushima. According to Japanese wiki, today's Kitakata City is the result of the mergers of 17 towns and villages over time. Total 52 testing locations for 17 towns and villages within Kitakata City would mean about 3 locations per town/village. (Fukushima Prefecture's site says 2 samples per town/village.)

The farm ministry unveiled new measures on Aug. 5 to help cattle farmers whose livestock were fed straw contaminated with radioactive cesium. The plan involves buying up all beef currently being stored in warehouses from around 3,500 head of cattle originating from farms in 17 prefectures. The total cost of the buy-up is expected to reach about 86 billion yen ($1.1 billion). If farmers are subsequently able to sell cattle from their farms or if they receive compensation for damages from Tokyo Electric Power Co., the operator of the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, they would be required to repay that amount to the government

According to other measures in the new package, the government will also: cover the storage costs for beef that has already been shipped from the four prefectures where the shipment ban has been enforced; buy up cattle that would move past the prime shipment period due to the ban; and provide funds of 50,000 yen per head of cattle to those farmers in 13 prefectures that test cattle for radiation, to cover expenses until shipments are resumed.

Kazue Tazaki is a professor emeritus at Kanazawa University in Ishikawa Prefecture. She took the contaminated soil from Iitate-mura in Fukushima Prefecture where the villagers were required to evacuate, and grew rice using that soil.Rice planting and growing was banned in Iitate-mura this year.Professor Tazaki just harvested the rice, and measured the concentration of cesium-137. The result?From the rice grains: 2,600 becquerels/kgFrom the straw: 2,200 becquerels/kgFrom the roots: 1,500 becquerels/kgSoil contamination: 50,000 becquerels/kgRoughly an equal amount of cesium-134 is to be expected. The transfer rate of cesium-137 in this case was about 0.05.

From Toyama Shinbun, local paper in Ishikawa Prefecture (9/27/2011):

Kazue Tazaki, professor emeritus at Kanazawa University has compiled the result of her experiment of growing rice using the soil from Iitate-mura in Fukushima Prefecture where high radiation levels have been recorded. 2,600 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium was detected from the harvested rice, more than 5 times the provisional safety limit (500 becquerels/kg) set by the national government. It was prohibited to plant rice in Iitate-mura because of the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant accident. The professor's data will be extremely valuable in studying the effect of radiation in the soil on the agricultural crops.

Vermont Law School (a private institution) is known as a leader in environmental law.  Students at the school have an Environmental Law Society and an International Law Society, and on September 30 these societies hosted a public meeting that featured Vaishali Patil, a woman from India who is an “environmental activist” and nuclear power opponent.

During the September 30 meeting that featured Patil, everyone in attendance introduced themselves, and Crafton said that she had come to the law school to work against the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant.

Speaking from notes on a piece of paper the size of an index card, she gave “red meat” to the audience of about 30 students and three or four older people. Her talk was similar to her speech on this YouTube presentation from earlier this year.

A baby bunny apparently born without ears (photo at left) in the town of Namie, near the massively leaking Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, has raised concerns about mutagenic effects caused by radioactivity in the environment. Naysayers abound, despite evidence of genetic mutations in animals (such as a two headed calf) and plants (including deformed flowers) in the aftermath of the Three Mile Island meltdown collected and documented by Mary Osborn; numerous scientific studies showing adverse impacts on wildlife populations in Chernobyl contaminated regions, such as on birds by Dr. Tim Mousseau of the University of South Carolina; and, further back in time, an epidemic of ewe deaths in southwest Utah immediately downwind of the Nevada Nuclear Weapons Test Site. An excellent book by John G. Fuller, "The Day We Bombed Utah," published in 1984, recounts how Mormon sheep farmers experienced unprecedented sheep and ewe deaths in the early 1950s, shortly after nuclear weapons blasts upwind in Nevada. The farmers sued the Atomic Energy Commission for damages. AEC research scientists swore, under oath, that they had no evidence that radioactivity could cause such a die off in sheep and ewes. However, over a quarter century later, it was shown by the sheep farmers and their attorney that the AEC had lied -- they had conducted experiments on sheep at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington State: they observed die offs very similar to what occurred in Utah. The same judge who had presided over the original trial heard the new evidence as well, and ruled that the AEC had perpetrated a fraud upon the court. Fuller also wrote "We Almost Lost Detroit," published in 1975, about the 1966 partial meltdown at the Fermi 1 experimental plutonium breeder reactor in Monroe, Michigan.

News of radioactive cesium rice just keeps coming from Fukushima Prefecture. This time, it is from Watari District again, and the number is the highest found so far.

Radioactive cesium exceeding the national provisional safety limit (500 becquerels/kg) has been found in rice harvested in Fukushima City and other cities in Fukushima Prefecture. On December 22, the Fukushima prefectural government announced that 1540 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium was found in rice grown by a farmer in Watari District in Fukushima Prefecture.

It is the highest level of radioactive cesium in rice detected so far. The rice is kept at the farmer's home, and not sold in the market.Well, it is the "official" highest level, and it is approaching the "unofficial" high (2600 becquerels/kg) measured in rice grown in the soil taken from Iitate-mura by Professor Kazue Tazaki of Kanazawa University. A similar amount of radioactive cesium was detected in rice grown in Iitate-mura (unofficially by an irate farmer who was forced to relocate).

Professor Yukio Hayakawa of Gunma University has been revising his radiation contour map that he first made available in April. Now, he has a version of the map dated September 30 that indicates the routes and the timing of contamination, as you see below.Professor Hayakawa says in the September 30 post that he specifically prohibits the use of the map by newspapers and television networks, as he protests the "unjust" firing of the Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Hachiro, which many in Japan, including politicians and some people in the mass media, considered as a hit job by a pro-nuke faction to bring down Hachiro.

Click on the map for a bigger view, or go to this link for a cleaner map.For PDF file of the map, go here.Some Japanese seem to think Professor Hayakawa is controversial because he doesn't mince his words to appear "nice" to the "victims" in Fukushima Prefecture. He openly accuses Fukushima farmers for "producing the poisonous (radiation-contaminated) produce and spreading them all over Japan". He says they had a choice of not farming this year, but they did.Some contrast to Hiroaki Koide of Kyoto University, who openly calls for the consumption of radiation-contaminated foods by adults in order to save the children and to save the farmers.