Thursday, December 22, 2011

#Radioactive Tomato in Kashiwa City, Chiba Prefecture

18.5 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium has been detected from tomatoes grown in Kashiwa City in Chiba Prefecture. The survey was done by one of the largest supermarket chain AEON.

From Savechild.net (12/23/2011):

大手スーパーのイオンは2011年11月8日、食品の放射性物質に対する調査を強化すると発表しました。そして、結果をホームページで公開しています。水産物ではたまにセシウムが検出されていましたが、野菜はずっと「検出せず」でした。しかし、12月22日に発表された「イオン農場農産物」の結果では、千葉県産のトマトから18.5ベクレル/kg検出したことを公表しました。

The large supermarket chain AEON announced on November 8 that it would conduct a more thorough analysis of radioactive materials in food items, and it has been publishing the results on its homepage. There has been occasional detection of radioactive cesium in marine products, but never in vegetables. However, according to the result published on December 22, 18.5 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium was detected from tomatoes grown in a contract farm in Chiba Prefecture.

The tomatoes in question were tested on December 15, according to the AEON's webpage.

Savechild.net reports that a quick phone call to AEON revealed that the tomatoes came from a contract farm in Kashiwa City which is located in the high-radiation northwest corner of Chiba Prefecture.

Savechild.net also speculates that at this time of the year these tomatoes must be grown in a hot house.

So where could radioactive cesium have come from? Water? Soil? Fertilizer? (I hope they weren't using rice hay as soil cover...)

AEON's page that lists the results of vegetable surveys is here. It looks the detection limit for tomatoes (as well as other vegetables) were higher in the earlier surveys, so it is possible that radioactive cesium had been there in the earlier samples but not detected.

AEON's page that lists the results of the radiation survey is here.

On a separate piece of news, AEON's subsidiary AEON MALL has won the contract for a redevelopment project right behind the Onahama Port in Iwaki City in Fukushima Prefecture, according to Fukushima Minpo. Promoting Fukushima rice and produce has paid out well for AEON Group, it looks.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

since anybody can see that the RED zones are totally contaminated, why not suspend growing food in these areas? Makes sense to me. Only a fool would grow food in the hottest zones and HOPE they were safe to eat.

Anonymous said...

who is in charge of food contracts in the hot zones? make a list of the zones based upon the updated recent maps of radioactive zones and CANCEL the contracts in the hot zones. All these growers should be relocated to non-hot zones to continue their jobs as producers of food.

no6ody said...

Just so you know... tomatoes can be stored a long time when green, and then ripened by ethylene gas. These tomatoes may be months old. That's why tomatoes sometimes taste like they were strip-mined instead of grown.

Anonymous said...

Not to defend Aeon (Ion) but they are the most transparent so far among the retailers in Japan and they took a pledge not to sell contaminated food and to test thoroughly their items and publish their findings. I wish the local/national governments would be more like that: more action less hot air.

Anonymous said...

Anyone thought about or tested the safety of food/beverage on the trans-pacific flights between Nartita/Tokyo and US cities?

We called Delta Airline, the phone agent had no idea what we're talking about, Delta's catering manager never responded to our inquiry. Eventually got an email from Delta headquarters saying they have a food safety specialist on their team, so don't worry. They never touched the subject of radioactive contamination now spreading in Japanese food distribution system, they never mentioned having a food radiation specialist or doing or planning any test, or how they source the food for planes leaving Japan.

This leaves us to assume that Delta and other airlines are not doing anything to check the food and drinks they load into their planes leaving Tokyo, etc. The onboard coffee and tea may as well have been made of Tokyo tap water. lol

Anonymous said...

The flow of radioactive food and fun irradiative products from japan will reach every corner of the globe before this is over. I think the sales slumps shows people worldwide are not buying the BS propaganda about "safe" products from a fallout zone.

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