Tokyo, Aug 30 (ANI): Fukushima rice was expected to re-appear on Japanese supermarket shelves today, with reports saying that Japanese officials have given a green signal to a farmer near the earthquake-cum-tsunami hit crippled plant to sell his rice, after it proved to be free of radiation in the tests.
Farmer Shunichi Sakuma from Koriyama, 199 kilometers north of Tokyo, became the first rice grower in the region to have his product, sold under the brand name Mizuho Kogane, returned to sale. He shipped nearly four tonnes today from his farm about 60km from the stricken nuclear plant, news.com.au reports.
"I am relieved because I'm able to ship rice and I can sell it without any worries. I want the government and (Fukushima's power station operator) Tokyo Electric Power Co. to put an end to the (nuclear) accident so that farmers can keep growing rice here on this land," Sakuma said.
Officials tested the crop for radiation on Saturday and cleared it.
Earlier this month, a Japanese regional government has claimed to have detected radioactive contamination in rice that was well below levels considered hazardous, amid continuing worries in Japan over food safety following the March 11 nuclear disaster.
The prefectural government had posted a notice on its website, saying it had detected 52 becquerels of radioactive cesium from a kilogram of brown rice collected on August 16 from the city of Hokota in the southern part of the prefecture.
The detected level was about 1/10th of Japan's regulatory limit of 500 becquerels per kilogram. However, it added that no cesium was detected from two other samples taken that day from different locations. (ANI)
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