Self-regulation aimed at easing consumers’ safety fears, as ‘lax’ current rules hit sales

By AYA TAKADA and YASUMASA SONG
Bloomberg
October 15, 2011

Rice farmers near the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant will impose radiation safety limits that will only clear grains with levels so low as to be virtually undetectable after government-set standards were viewed as too lenient and sales suffered.

Farmers now completing the harvest in areas affected by fallout from the nuclear station are struggling to find buyers amid doubts about cesium limits, which are less stringent than in livestock feed. No samples have been found exceeding the official limits. 

A self-imposed, near-zero limit on radiation in rice may help spur sales from Fukushima, which was the fourth-largest producer in Japan last year, representing about 5 percent of the total harvest. The prefectural office of Zen-Noh, the nation’s biggest farmer group, plans to only ship cesium-free rice to address safety concerns, as does the National Confederation of Farmers Movements, which includes about 30,000 producers nationwide.