The medical prognosis of eating produce from an irradiated farm might raise a few brow , but there was a time whengrowing produce exposed to radiationwas all the rage . Now that the UK has scrapped all restrictions on food imports from Fukushima , web site of the ill-famed atomic king plant incident , question are being asked , is it safe ? According to a review by the UK’sFood Standards Agency : yes , it is .
A major earthquake that triggered a15 - measure tsunamidisabled three reactor at theFukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Planton March 11 , 2011 . The resulting radioactive tragedy saw more than 100,000 people evacuated after the meltdown due to unsafe grade of radioactive contamination .
Environmental radiologists , like Thomas Johnson from Colorado State University , have since been studying the area to establish if or how dangerous the levels of radiocaesium in the part continue . AsDiscoverreports , analyses of local wildlife back in 2018 give away that , actually , level in some portion were n’t all that much higher than the course existing degree found in other division of the Earth .
As for those that rest grave to this day , it ’s expected the danger will drop off around the twelvemonth 2041 as radiocaesium has a half - life of around 29 years . In the meantime , experience in these expanse in never-ending exposure to the radiation sickness can have negative implications for human health , but what about produce that ’s grown there ?
Restrictions were in spot on the craft of garden truck grown in Fukushima , butThe Telegraphreports that in 2019 the European Union began relax its rules regarding imports from the part . Now , the UK is lifting all restrictions once position on Fukushima ’s exports following areviewby the Food Standards Agency ( FSA ) who are now ditching a rule which say imports could n’t contain more than 100 Henri Becquerel of radiocaesium per kilogram ( Bq / kg ) .
“ Our danger judgement shows that removing the [ 100 Bq / kg ] maximal level of radiocaesium for food import from Japan to the UK would lead in a trifling growth in dosage and any connect risk to UK consumer , ” the FSAsaid .
In fact , Japan ’s radiation levels in food for thought are the strictest in the earth , with an upper limit for radioactive Cs in average foodstuff stricter than both the EU and the US . strictly test , the Fukushima prefectural government toldthe Guardianin 2020 that its food safety measure are among the most stringent in the world . “ expert from the International Atomic Energy Agency come every year to check up on our work , ” theatre director general of Fukushima ’s agricultural safety gadget publicity department , Kenji Kusano , said during a tour of the facility . “ We always receive an A grade . ”
Food rise there was even served in the athletes ' Greenwich Village during the Tokyo Olympics in 2020 .
Between 2011 and 2014 , Japan implemented an challenging platform to test and try out the radiation levels of every kind of food raise in the arena , with nearly a million samples fit , something that Georg Steinhauser , a chemist and fellow worker of Johnson ’s at Colorado toldWiredin 2015 " has n’t been done in the history of mankind . ” By mid-2014 , just 0.6 percent of samples exceeded Japan ’s radiation limits , which were one - sixth of what Europe allowed at the time .
convert people that the food for thought is safe is an uphill battle for scientists but with country like the UK withdraw limitation , grounds is slowly winning out .
However , while the historic nuclear calamity in Fukushima Prefecture was an accident , in times gone by homo have actually purposefully wielded radiation as a means of growing green groceries .
Atomic Gardensonce used radioactive sources like cobalt-60 to effectively hyperdrive the kinds of mutations which naturally take place but take a slew longer to come about . While some plants were burned in the appendage , others emerge with good mutations like atomic militant and Atomic Gardening Society Founder Muriel Howorth ’s 0.6 - meter - tall ( 2 - metrical foot ) peanut plant that produced remarkably prominent nuts .
