Someone uploaded the photo on Twitter, and was apparently immediately harassed by people who accused him/her of spreading "baseless rumors". So I won't link his/her tweet, as a precaution, although I would like to give credit. The photo looks unaltered.
From the very first year of the nuclear accident in 2011, Fukushima Prefecture was using children to push peaches grown in Fukushima. Back then, those students from Fukushima who went to Yokohama (in Kanagawa Prefecture) on a school trip were promoting Fukushima peaches in a park in Yokohama, telling the passers-by how delicious the peaches were.
Nothing has changed, and just like in the first year of the nuclear accident, and the 2nd year, the pop group TOKIO is busy promoting "Eat and Support" by eating Fukushima peaches again this year:
Checking the radiation monitoring site by Fukushima Prefecture (in English), cesium-134 is no longer detected (with the detection limit of about 4 Bq/kg), and the max cesium-137 is 4.67 Bq/kg.
The highest amount of radioactive cesium in peaches from Fukushima in 2011 was 150 Bq/kg from peaches in Date City. The provisional safety limit was 500 Bq/kg then, so these peaches were deemed "safe".
Fruit farmers in Fukushima had no problem growing, harvesting and selling peaches, apples, pears, persimmons in the very first year of the accident. They complained that their fruits didn't get the price they used to get before the nuclear accident, and said they were suffering the "baseless rumors".
They have continued to produce ever since. With the strong backing from the Abe administration and in particular from Ms. Masako Mori, Minister in charge of consumer affairs and of dealing with declining number of children in Japan, who wants to enact a law to force retailers to carry Fukushima produce, Fukushima farmers can continue to blame those fickle consumers in the rest of the country who won't buy their stuff for spreading "baseless rumors".
Checking the radiation monitoring site by Japan Chemical Analysis Center, there are only 8 cases of measuring any kind of fruits, and they are all in Hokkaido. The max Cs-137 content was found in grapefruits in 1994, at 0.14 Bq/kg.
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12 comments:
Can anyone point us to reliable sources for radiation readings in food from Fukushima? Including of course places like Date. Is anyone actually testing and publishing?
It is no more a fake than the massive ad campaign on TVs for the oishiiiiii Fukushima peaches. By adults and young ones, but there's often a short "documentary" piece where children pick up the peaches.
In Tokyo now, Phiphi.
Anon at 5:03PM, it's in the post, in the paragraph right below the video.
I'm still a little confused by some of the numbers. Why do they all have different detection levels? And sometimes the amount for one isotope is lower than the ND level for the other. For example, if you look at the results for Kori town, it says ND <5.1 for C-134, but for C-137 it says 4.67. So, if that is correct, then 5.1 can't be actual the detection level, no?
If anyone wants a taste of bitter fruit, visit the 'monitoring' site at new-fukushima.
Their slogan "Toward a New Future of Fukushima."
I believe the slogan should more accurately read:
"Fukushima: The Will to Disempower."
The results for peaches in the Fukushima page are quite low, surprisingly.
It seems the guys at CRMS are getting similar results: http://www.crms-jpn.org/mrdatafoodcat/food_fruits.html but they only have three results for this season: http://www.crms-jpn.org/mrdatafoodcat/food_%E6%9E%9C%E5%AE%9F%E9%A1%9E.html
Whatever, Fukushima farmers are going to get screwed by radiophobia no matter what, so better if they start committing suicide en masse.
As a Tokyo consumer, I just will not buy anything labeled Fukushima. The baseless rumor I live by is that there has been no reliable, trustable, outside source of radiation levels, no accurate labeling of WHERE in Fukushima the produce & peaches are grown, and, oh yes, I am not a blind idiot. Calling this process of surviving the continued onslaught of useless, guileful, self-serving statements from the government on down, I actually resent my conclusions being counter-labeled as "baseless rumors". The opposite is true.
Fukushima farmers, if they can't get accurage, place-oriented labeling on their products, are going to have to think of something else to produce. Better yet, MOVE to somewhere else in Japan and produce your produce & peaches from a safe place. Until, that is, the local nuclear power plant starts up and blows a gasket. Whereupon you will be back to square one. Why not invest in renewable energy instead. Sell sun, wind, and thermal power, for instance, instead of poisoned food.
The only key to reduce baseless rumors is information. This is something that Fukusahima farmers should know better than anybody else. But instead of providing that,(good visible labeling from independent companies i.e.) they spend their money on CMs saying how good their fruit is...
if they want us to go and look for the information ourselves it means to me that they dont want to play fair in such a delicate situation (even if it is actually safe)
-I wonder how many of these farmers would be eating peaches from chernobyl just based on some happy CMs without the proper info..-
radiophobia? I guess you are radiophile, who loves to have extra few becquerels of cesium for a kick.
Farmers in Date City were giving away their peaches to residents in Kyoto City yesterday. Families with toddlers and small children were happy to have free peaches.
When Deepwater Horizon blew up American coasts were awash with oil.
Even beaches unaffected by the spill saw a drop in tourist flux; hotel owners in those areas were able to have damages paid by the oil company (maybe just because it was not American, but still).
Note that it is relatively easier to figure out whether your beach is affected by an oil spill, rather than figure out how much Cesium is in your peach. In this respect, I guess beach "rumours" were less justified than Fukushima.
I still do not understand why Tepco does not just pay damages to peach growers and the like.
Beppe
"I still do not understand why Tepco does not just pay damages to peach growers and the like."
They have no money and the money they would pay would be tax money. So the gov is trying to force things their "natural" way, i.e. let the farmers sell their produce and hope that will be it.
On avoiding Fukushima labelled produce: the sad reality is that whether it is justified or not (nobody can really tell because you cannot measure everything), it also gives "avoiders" a warm feeling as you feel you have some control, and you are "doing something" rather than being powerless (which IMHO is the inconvenient truth), thus there is a strong incentive for people to avoid all Fukushima produce, no matter if justified or not.
Dear anonymous,
Tepco has money to pay bonuses and to invest in restarting KK, why not pay for the damages first?
On Fukushima produce: the sad reality is that measuring what you want in order to get the result you want is WAY too easy; furthermore, the people doing the measurements have a vested interest into keeping the numbers low (remember how well self-regulation worked for finance and nuclear?).
On being in control: one needs to focus on what can be done, giving up altogether or focusing on what you can not change anyways are losing propositions. Hence, cut *all* mushrooms, takenoko, wild fruits and animals; minimize usage of produce from Tohoku, etc.. By doing so you risk less *and* boycott those idiots who gladly accepted npps on their land.
Beppe
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