Radiation in Japan

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High Levels of Radiation found in the Japanese tea
Friday, 10 June 2011 09:19
NHK reported today, that radioactive cesium was found in green tea, which is produced in the city of Shizuoka, Shizuoka Prefecture, located in the southeast of Japan, 300 km from the NPP Fukushima-1.

During the analysis, it was found that green tea contains radioactive isotopes of cesium in a concentration 679 becquerel, with standardized indicators in 500 becquerel.

Shizuoka is a Japan Prefecture, which is located in the Chubu region on Honshu, Japan. Shizuoka Prefecture in the west is bordered by Aichi Prefecture, in north-western bordered with Nagano Prefecture, and in north-eastern- bordered with the prefecture of Kanagawa. Shizuoka Prefecture stretches from west to east for 155 km and from north to south - by 118 km, area of the prefecture is about 7,773 square meters, is about 2% of Japan.

Since ancient times, Shizuoka Prefecture was one of the richest agricultural provinces of Japan. Great artists Hokusai and Hiroshige in Japan describe the beauty of the province of Shizuoka in a series of drawings of his "36 Views of Mount Fuji", "53 stations of Tokaido," and so on the Izu Peninsula in Shizuoka Prefecture, was the scene of many famous events in the history of Japan. It was off the coast of Shizuoka Prefecture in 1853 for the first time threw their anchor so-called "black ships" - the American military squadron under the command of Commodore Matthew Perry that forced the Japanese government under the threat of guns to abandon the policy of self-isolation of Japan, which was held for 250 years. In Shizuoka Prefecture for the first time in 1854 was opened by the U.S. consulate.

The city of Shizuoka is the capital of Shizuoka Prefecture. In addition to tea processing enterprises, in the city of Shizuoka located also enterprises of engineering, woodworking and metalworking industries. The content of radioactive substances into other products from the province of Shizuoka is being installed. Will also be verified reserves of dry tea enterprises in Shizuoka Prefecture, the content of radioactive isotopes of cesium which can exceed 5 times the content of radioactive isotopes of cesium in the green tea leaves in the tea plantations of the prefecture.

It should be noted, that Japan is not an active exporter of tea, because in 2010 from Japan were exported about 5.8% tea. In this case, about 52 percent were exported to U.S., about 8 percent were exported to mainland China, about 20 percent were exported to Hong Kong and about 10 percent were exported to Taiwan, the remaining 10 percent were exported in other countries.

But the Government of Japan a few years ago planned to increase exports of agricultural, forest and sea products up to 1 trillion yen by 2013. The Ministry of Agriculture in Japan has launched a system of quality certification and standardization of green tea, as part of a nationwide program to identify its products. Back in 2010 Japanese green tea is mentioned in the list of the most promising export products of Japan. Japan Association of Training even started to conduct educational programs abroad- in Taiwan, South Korea and China, to prepare advisors for the Japanese tea to foreign markets. Developed a new marketing policy, with the aim of promoting Japanese tea in the U.S., China and Hong Kong, were produced promotional materials in Chinese, English and Japanese languages, setting out full information about the Japanese tea.

However, after a Japanese green tea have been discovered radioactive isotopes, a plan for capacity-intensive exports of tea from Japan will not come true, and the Ministry of Health of Japan ordered to withdraw all collected and shipped tea from all prefectures in Japan, where the content of radioactive isotopes exceeds the norm. Ban on the export of tea from these prefectures will inevitably lead to an increase in imports and an increase in the price of tea in the Japanese domestic market and force domestic consumers to switch from green tea on the cheaper grades.

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