School lunch in Fukushima after the accident.

(oil painting on wood panel, collage. 117×91cm × 3 pieces. 2016)
　

“‘We shall at least be strict about ourselves‘

Mr. Agatsuma decided to prepare inspection system for JA ( Japan Agricultural Cooperatives ) Fukushima.

And he decided to check out all the farmer’s houses, not two places for each former municipality.

In this flow, contaminated rice of 630 becquerels was found.

The detection of contaminated rice caused poor sales of agricultural products.

Sales of direct stores operated by JA Fukushima decreased by as much as 30 percent.

The price of rice also dropped.

Agatsuma was on the verge of declaring to a farmer

“ I will sell at the risk of my life. “

With senior agricultural cooperatives,

he and his colleagues visited 47 Japanese other prefecture’s markets nationwide.

What he was told while this visiting hit his heart.

“ We can’t take anything you don’t eat,”

In Fukushima, a movement has been made to change the prefecture’s domestic produce to foreign produce at a school lunch.

It had been reported on the news.

Agatsuma thought there was only one road left.

“ We have to eat product of Fukushima by ourself,

especially make rice of Fukushima be used in school lunches.

If Fukushima’s children will eat Fukushima rice,

we can appeal to the whole country about safety.”

(source : “Prometheus Traps 37 -Fukushima rice is not 100% secure for school lunch. “)

 

“ Finally, not only Fukushima Prefecture, but also the entire people of Japan were victims of this nuclear accident.

It is my wish that the whole people of this country respond as a national disaster to overcome the disaster

without discriminating against Fukushima through PR activities.”

(source : “ Report from Fukushima Prefecture - Efforts for the production and sale of all JA-all Fukushima” Kazuya Takahashi )

 

“What kind of food shall we give our children?

The problem is internal exposure.

In Koriyama, children in elementary and junior high schools will be allowed to eat local rice called Asaka Mai.

It was already decided on Nov. 8 and will start from the next week.

For my part, I’d like to stop it because I can’t stand it.

But to tell you the truth, I am treated as a freak.

There are 290 teachers, but only five or six of them have the same opinion as me.

They also think it is taboo to talk about this problem.

The principal of the school also said to me,

“Even though your are one of Fukushima’s public teacher, as local government official,

can’t you eat food made by this place’s local people? “

 

“Toshiki Kokubun, a member of the Fukushima Prefectural Teachers’ Union, said

: Safety declaration by Japanese government has been conducted this autumn.

When school lunch nutrition teachers requested to use foods which made from other region than the prefecture’s domestic production,

these nutrition teachers were gathered and said to use Fukushima’s product as it was safe.

Also When a nutrition teacher requests food materials outside the prefecture,

the producer raises the demand and the principal instructs nutrition teachers to use local products.”

( source of two points above:

“ Human Rights Now Fukushima and Koriyama Survey Report Actual Survey of November 26, 2011 “)

 

 

 

Since the Chernobyl accident, many children got thyroid cancer.

Even international organizations like IAEA,

which had been negative about the impact of so-called low-dose exposure on health,

couldn’t deny the impact of radiation-induced thyroid cancer in the 10th year after the accident.

In today’s information society,

we can see that the fact that after the nuclear accident in the former Soviet Union,

people let their children drink contaminated milk was a one of major cause of internal exposure among children.

After the Fukushima nuclear accident,

parents of Fukushima and neighbouring prefectures, who were sensitive to information,

tried to keep their children away from contaminated food.

 

Fukushima is an agricultural prefecture.

Even before the accident,

elementary schools and other public educational institutions used the produce of the Fukushima’s land for school lunches to teach about food,

land and history through eating local foods.

Reading a report of Fukushima’s educational institution at the time,

it shows that the purpose of the education was to raise children’s awareness of the people of Fukushima Prefecture through food.

 

 

 

I understand that’s important in a surface.

In addition,

it was the elderly farmer who supported Fukushima’s farming in recent years.

According to statistics from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries,

the average age of farmers of Fukushima exceeded their 70 years old as of 2016.

 

On this kind of background, a radioactive disaster occurred.

After the accident,

I heard this story from a mother directly who used to live in Fukushima.

She did not want her children to drink milk of school lunches,

so she put a clean water purchased from other prefecture into bottle and gave it to her child.

But the school contacted her.

“ I’m afraid as school we don’t not allowed your child to take food from outside, so please stop it.”

She got angry and said,

“I wonder if you don’t know now is the situation after the nuclear accident occurred in our prefecture! “

Then the school told her.

” I don’t have any other children like yours. So please stop it.”

After a while,

she moved the child to another prefecture.

When I read a report from an organization responsible for the Fukushima school lunch program,

I found that it took a while for them to establish a radioactive contamination inspection system for the ingredients used in the school lunch.

The report shows that they accepted demands from the parents saying like this.

●Please tell us about product places of foods which are used in school lunch.

●Please check the amount of radioactive contamination in foods.

It’s quite natural.

Their countermeasures were published in this document,

and we can see that each responses were made in July and August 2011,

though of course it was not sufficient written so in this report.

What you can see from this report is that

there was a period when Fukushima’s vegetables were used for school lunches without a checking.

 

About two hundreds children ( under eighteen ) of Fukushima have tyroid gland cancer after this accident until 2019.

What was the cause of that?

As we look at that,

the problem of school lunch is always in perspective.

However,

as long as Japanese public institutions do not recognize the frequent occurrence of thyroid gland cancer,

no public consideration has been made on this school lunches issue until 2018.

 

 

 

( text : Akira Tsuboi )