FUKUSHIMA: Rice farmers sense glimmer of hope after nuclear disaster

It is early October and an idyllic scene is unfolding beneath a clear autumn sky. As red dragonflies flit by, the air is filled with the melodious hum of combine harvester reaping through rice fields.

Residents of Hirono in Fukushima Prefecture have been waiting nearly three years to witness this moment.

The reason? The 2011 disaster at the Fukushima No.1 nuclear power plant rendered the land useless for planting rice.

“It is really a good feeling to see the rice piled up in the vats again,” says 49-year-old Kazuya Igari.

When he began planting again this year, Igari faced a very different situation compared with before the nuclear catastrophe.

He lived 200 meters from the coast. His home was destroyed in the tsunami generated by the Great East Japan Earthquake. His tractor and other farming equipment were also swept away, and his rice paddies were submerged in mud. He now lives in temporary housing with his 49-year-old wife and 25-year-old daughter.

Igari farms a plot about 1.2 hectares wide. The land is actually rented from a friend. It lies more than 4 kilometers further inland than his own farm.

Like most rice farmers in town, this is a side job for Igari. Yet this didn’t stop him from buying used farming equipment to go about his tasks.

“These paddies give me a purpose in life. I didn’t want to give them up,” he explains.

At the end of April, Igari sprinkled potassium chloride on the decontaminated paddies. The chemical compound was donated by the town to help prevent rice plants absorbing radioactive cesium. A few days later, Igari was tilling the fields on a second-hand tractor he had just bought.  (FULL ARTICLE--LINK)