What if I told you that peaches grown around the Fukushima Daiichi Power Plant, the site of Japan’s catastrophic nuclear accident, were on sale at Harrods, a London luxury department store that Ronald Reagan once asked about buying. baby elephant?
It’s true, and how those peaches got there is a story of clever marketing, just like how the people of Fukushima Prefecture, devastated by the 2011 disaster, are trying to rid their region of its nuclear legacy.
Most people in the US associate peaches with Georgia. But before nuclear accidentThe prefecture, located in a traditional and picturesque part of northeastern Japan, was a prosperous agricultural area, earning it the nickname “The Kingdom of Fruit.”
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But that all changed on March 11, 2011, when the strongest earthquake in Japan’s recorded history triggered a tsunami, 50 feet (15 meters) high, that hit one of the region’s nuclear power plants, causing flooding. Three active nuclear reactors lost power. Without their cooling systems, the reactor cores overheated and partially melted. This damaged the containment vessels of the reactors, causing an explosion. When toxic radioactive material exploded, seeping into the soil, water, air and foliage, the prefectural government declared a 12.5-mile (20-kilometer) radius danger zone around the plant. The fallout models then called for an additional 80 sq mi (207 sq km) of land – about the size of Seattle. An estimate 18,500 people died as a result of the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown..
According to the scale of severity of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the Fukushima emergency was level 7, equivalent to it. Chernobyl The The countryside of Fukushima it was no longer a fruit kingdom, and the way of life of its farmers was ruined.
So imagine my surprise when, 13 years later, I saw pictures of Harrods grocery staff handing out samples of Fukushima-grown peaches to shoppers who were apparently willing to give them a taste. If your gut reaction was probably something like “I wouldn’t try one of those radioactive peaches if I paid for it,” no one would blame you; that was my initial reaction too.
Questions began to swirl in my mind: how could the fruit grown in this region be safe? How did these peaches stop being exported? Could these radioactive peaches create a new superhero?
A radioactive reputation can be hard to shake. If I offered you a peach grown in Chernobyl, to restore it for 38 years, would you take it? What about food grown on Three Mile Island? That explosion was almost 45 years ago. Probably not, right? But why is this?
One of the main reasons for nuclear energy it has a bad reputation is his unfortunate birth; before splitting atoms for public energy, scientists split them for war. When a similar technique was used power generation a a few years later, and nuclear power plants It started working commercially from 1954the public did not see the energy released by radioactive decay as a new and highly efficient energy source; they saw it as something capable of obliterating cities and instantly incinerating people if it left behind an insidious pollution..
Anti-nuclear movements spread In the 1960s and 1970s worldwide, highlighting the growing public fear of nuclear weapons and power. Nuclear power also lost its popularity because of him high costs and concerns disposal of nuclear waste and work safety. But many governments ignored the protests and built plants anyway, including Japan (Fukushima Daiichi was built in 1967). Despite the brutal experience of nuclear war, the country chose nuclear power to help facilitate its economic growth and energy self-sufficiency. Many governments were also aware About the need to continue developing nuclear technologies, both to symbolize the technical knowledge of their country, and if the practical knowledge of nuclear fission would be useful in the future.
Failures at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl did happen, however, many of the nuclear fears of the general public were confirmed. Research has shown that nuclear energy he did not withdraw his association with death, danger and weapons, even in recent decades. I have met many unadvertised physicists working in the nuclear field because of this persistent stigma.
Compared to Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, however, Fukushima benefited from 30 years of technological advances to support its cleanup mission. Immediately after the accident, hundreds of workers They took turns in groups of 50 to try to stabilize the plant and reduce radioactive emissions.
Once stabilized, cleanup began with the plant’s operators, Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings (or TEPCO), partially owned by the Japanese government, decommissioned the plant to remove all remaining radioactive material. Workers bagged contaminated materials for safe disposal, and contained contaminated water stored for later releasetelling that it rots more. TEPCO would later use it of robotic technologyincluding ALPS systemto support their decontamination efforts. The affected areas also suffered quickly strict follow-upusing the same equipment as scientists EPA’s RadNetto test the level of radioactivity in the air and soil and observe the rate of decay. A large number of radioactive substances were released in the disaster, including plutonium and uraniumbut scientists also looked for harmful levels radioactive isotopes of cesium and iodinewhich were numerous and widespread polluters of agricultural land.
Many Japanese and onlookers around the world were sure that the farmland in Fukushima Prefecture would lie unused for decades. But as early as July 2011, researchers were making startling claims.The soil in Fukushima was declared safe. Although this was the decay half-life of cesium-137—one of the main polluting isotopes—is about 30 years. The analysis of scientists showed that, instead of going deep into the soil as feared, the radioactive contamination appeared to have affected only about two inches of the top layer of soil, and had accumulated in crops already grown.
Take out the bad soil and get rid of the bad crops, they said, and food grown in Fukushima would be safe. That’s exactly what they didsignificantly reducing soil pollution and allowing residents to return to their homes. This is in stark contrast to Chernobyl, where the surrounding areas were completely deserted and reduced to ghost towns, many of them. they remain abandoned to this day.
Local agricultural facility it was adjusted, and In September 2011, it began testing radiation samples. Today, the facility has a radiation analysis unit; in my opinion, the food that passes through here, including peach yields like those sold at Harrods, is the most thoroughly studied in the world. Germanium semiconductor detectors, concentration of radioactive cesium detectors, sodium iodide scintillation spectrometers and further scan the products for signs of radioactivity. It corresponds to a nationally accepted testing process Strict standard thresholds of 100 Becquerels per kilogram food product—is only a tenth of those recognized internationally CODEX threshold of 1,000 Bq/kgand much less radiation than The United States standard of 1,200 Bq/kg. They also suffer from Fukushima food follow up and the tests The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nations nuclear watchdog, to ensure safe standards.
In 2017, 6 years after the disaster, the Japanese government said that the food from Fukushima was “safe and delicious”, backing up the bold statement with numerous data and endorsements from officials of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and the IAEA, major global organizations. They have helped the government control pollution.
according to Data presented by the Japanese governmentFukushima agricultural soil was said to have radiation “dose rates” comparable to soil in New York, London, Hong Kong and Seoul from 2017 to 2018 because. radiation occurs naturally. Fukushima peaches would therefore be no more radioactively contaminated than those grown in a garden in London. It can also become US soil contaminated with natural radionuclides and also from nuclear weapons testsbut fruit grown in the US has much lower safety thresholds fewer radioactivity testing procedures Compared to what comes from Fukushima. And yet we all eat.
Internationally, it took several more years before governments began to respect the scientists’ findings. in 2021 The FDA agreed According to “standard surveillance and sampling measures”, food imported from Fukushima to the US did not pose a food safety risk to consumers. In 2023, they continued to test 51 samples from the area and found that none had “detectable levels of cesium”. The UK also lifted restrictions on imports from Fukushima two years ago. International protocols made food safe for import and consumption.
But would consumers agree? That’s where Harrods comes in. The Japanese government and TEPCO – the owner of the damaged plant – have pushed hard for the initiative to build their reputation. Pair peaches with Harrods, a place frequented by the royal family, and perhaps they become a delicacy, an interesting bite to take out at a dinner party rather than something to dread.
And their pricing reflects that. They cost almost $33 a piece, and on average, a peach from Georgia in the US costs less than $1. By selling them here, they might hasten their fruits to a better reputation, rather than perpetuate the singularity of the origin, its strangeness, its fear.
Regardless of the cost of these peaches, the region is asking the world not to let it sink into a ruinous past. This is commendable.
When I first heard about peaches, my gut instinct was “no thanks.” But now I realize that the food at Fukushima has been tested to within an inch of its life, and probably mine. I trust the science on this, regardless of all the negative nuclear associations. So now, shall I try one? Yes, if they’re still giving out free samples, $33 for a peach, while safe, is incredibly nice.
This is an opinion and analysis article, and the views expressed by the author(s) are not necessarily their own. American scientific
