March 8, 2016

Fukushima officials brief Hong Kong on food safety

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20160308_02/

Officials from Fukushima are urging Hong Kong to lift the import ban on food from the prefecture that was imposed after the nuclear accident nearly five years ago.

Hong Kong was the prefecture's biggest export destination before the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident.

Japanese food is widely popular with Hong Kong consumers.

The territory used to account for 80 percent of the prefecture's agricultural, forestry, and fisheries exports, including its specialty peaches.

Hong Kong banned imports of fruit and vegetables from Fukushima and four other prefectures.

On Monday, Fukushima representatives briefed Hong Kong media and officials about on-going measures to ensure food safety. About 40 journalists and local officials attended the briefing.

Prefectural officials say radiation levels in most areas have dipped to about the same levels found in most other major cities in the world.

They also say none of the food which was tested for radioactive materials last year exceeded permissible levels, excluding some marine products. Prefectural officials are calling for the ban to be lifted.

A representative from a dried persimmon producer group says they peeled and decontaminated the bark from 250,000 persimmon trees.
He says it took three years to resume production.
One Hong Kong newspaper reporter confessed to not knowing about the food checks in the region, but said more trust should be placed in Fukushima.

Kenji Kokubun, who is in charge of agricultural produce distribution in Fukushima, says when people are not informed, they understand things wrongly and demagoguery and false rumors may appear.
He says producers would like to inform people of the checks that are in place, and get people to see how hard the farming community is working.