Japan's refusenik farmers tackle nuclear waste

Nobuyoshi Ito watched the explosions at the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant from his hilltop farm, which lies just 30 kilometres away in Iitate village.

Despite being urged to abandon his village, Ito was one of the farmers who refused to leave. Instead, he began to study the effect of radioisotopes on crops. He collected data from 17 rice paddy fields and vegetable patches in his area, which was designated a radioactivity hotspot. He claims that food grown in contaminated soil actually contained relatively low levels of caesium. The highest was just 101 becquerels per kilogram in sweet potatoes - five times below the government's safety limit.

Naoto Matsumura in Tomioka, just a few kilometres from the plant, also chose to remain, but for a different reason. He cares for the animals left behind inside the 20-kilometre evacuation zone.

Distressed by seeing still-tethered cows that had died of dehydration, and knowing that others would be exterminated because of contamination, Matsumura joined forces with Masamichi Yamashita, a Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) researcher working on how to decompose organic waste in orbiting space stations. The pair came up with a simple solution: get the cows to eat the caesium-contaminated grass, and use bacteria to compost their waste and reduce its bulk.

Cows, unlike humans, do not absorb caesium, and it is deposited in faeces, says Matsumura. "By doing this, the cows avoid the guillotine and we can get rid of contaminated grass without human involvement." The waste will still need processing, but the technique could save hundreds of cattle and hectares of currently unusable land. Other farmers are testing how well materials such as zeolite, scallop shells, potassium fertiliser and sea mud can absorb caesium in rice paddies.

Farmer Seiji Sugeno, of Nihonmatsu, about 75 kilometres from Fukushima, is heeding the advice of Masanori Nonaka, an agriculture professor at Niigata University, and ploughing his land to bury the caesium. This traps it in the clay below and makes it less likely to be absorbed by plant roots.

Ito, meanwhile, has noticed a change over winter, because lying snow seems to block radiation. "Since the first snowfall, radioactivity levels on my farm have almost halved," he says.

If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.

Have your say

Only subscribers may leave comments on this article. Please log in.

Only personal subscribers may leave comments on this article

Subscribe now to comment.

All comments should respect the New Scientist House Rules. If you think a particular comment breaks these rules then please use the "Report" link in that comment to report it to us.

If you are having a technical problem posting a comment, please contact technical support.

Source: http://feeds.newscientist.com/c/749/f/10897/s/1d4c0678/l/0L0Snewscientist0N0Carticle0Cmg213285530B40A0A0Ejapans0Erefusenik0Efarmers0Etackle0Enuclear0Ewaste0Bhtml0DDCMP0FOTC0Erss0Gnsref0Fonline0Enews/story01.htm

noaa gavin degraw gavin degraw primary results cab calloway dale earnhardt jr bethenny frankel