Tochigi became the fourth prefecture to have beef shipments suspended due to fears of radiation contamination.
Tochigi joins Fukushima, Iwate and Miyagi to find cattle contaminated with radioactive cesium after eating straw grown near the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant. The straw was contaminated with 690,000 becquerels per kilogram, well over the government’s limit of 300.
Details from this story have been leaking out over the past few weeks. Radioactive beef has turned up in supermarkets in Tokyo and other parts of the Kanto region, as well as school lunches in Gifu. While the amount of radiation found in the meat samples exceeded legal limits, it was probably not enough to lead to illness. As updates develop, I will watch to see if farmers or distributors knowingly sold contaminated beef, such as when Hokkaido-based Snow Brand intentionally mislabeled and sold contaminated dairy products in July 2000.
The growing ban on cattle will further hurt Japan’s food security, since the country only produces about 40 percent of its own food.
