August 2, 2011

 

Japan halts Iwate's beef cattle shipments

 

 

The Japanese government on Monday (Aug 1) ordered all shipments of beef cattle from Iwate Prefecture to be banned temporarily following the discovery of cattle contaminated with radioactive cesium in the area.

 

Iwate is the third prefecture, after Fukushima and Miyagi also in northeastern Japan, to be ordered by the central government to suspend all beef cattle shipments.

 

The government issued the order to the Fukushima and Miyagi prefectural governments last month after rice straw exposed to radiation leaked from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant was fed to beef cattle and meat tested positive for radioactive cesium.

 

It is the first ban on shipments related to food produced in Iwate, which the health ministry said ships around 36,000 cattle annually.

 

The government is also considering suspending shipments of cattle raised in Tochigi Prefecture, neighbouring Fukushima, government officials said.

 

In the city of Ichinoseki and the town of Fujisawa in Iwate, rice straw fed to cattle contained radioactive cesium above the government-set limit of 300 becquerels per kilogramme, while meat from six head of cattle tested positive for radioactive cesium in excess of the maximum allowable level for beef of 500 becquerels per kilogramme.

 

The government, as it has in Fukushima and Miyagi, is asking all farms that had shipped cows exposed to radioactive cesium in Iwate to inspect all cattle, among other measures, before it will consider lifting the shipment ban.

 

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said that the government will lift the order on Iwate after the safety of beef cattle in the prefecture is confirmed.

 

''We will thoroughly check certain areas that have possible cases of cattle being given contaminated feed, and only allow those that pass the tests will be cleared for shipment to market,'' Edano said, when asked about the impact of the latest order on other prefectures.

 

The contamination of beef with radioactive cesium above the government-set limit is believed to have originated in rice straw left outdoors after the Fukushima plant was crippled by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.

 

The Iwate prefectural government also announced Monday that it had detected radioactive cesium in ash at its garbage incineration facilities above the government's permissible limit of 8,000 becquerels per kilogramme for ash that can be buried in landfills.

Of the prefecture's incineration facilities, those in Ichinoseki and Oshu cities had maximum levels of 30,000 becquerels and 15,000 becquerels per kilogramme, respectively.

 

Since the ash cannot be buried in landfills because the level of radioactive cesium exceeds the government limit, it will be stored in containers at incineration facilities or buildings at landfill sites.