plant – Page 2 – Uncanny Terrain

August 29, 2011August 29, 2011

Safecast Radiation Monitoring Seminar

At Tokyo Hacker Space on 6/24/11, members of the NGO Safecast present the goals, methods, and results of their ongoing volunteer project to independently measure and map contamination levels from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant fallout at hundreds of thousands of sites across Japan.

Uncanny Terrain is a documentary about organic farmers facing Japan’s nuclear crisis, and an international online community fostering dialogue on food safety, sustainable agriculture, alternative energy and disaster response. Please keep the conversation going by making a tax-deductible donation.

August 16, 2011

Remembering Hiroshima bombing after Fukushima disaster

On Aug. 6 we attended the 66th anniversary of the world’s first nuclear attack in Hiroshima, with Yuji Ohashi, a Fukushima City bread company owner who is committed to rebuilding Fukushima in the face of the nuclear fallout.

But Steven Leeper, the first non-Japanese chairman of the Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation, says Fukushima’s recovery will be much harder than Hiroshima’s was. He’s hopeful that in light of the Fukushima crisis, Japan might overcome the nuclear industry’s dominance of its national politics and lead an international movement for a future free of nuclear weapons and nuclear power.

Uncanny Terrain is a documentary about organic farmers facing Japan’s nuclear crisis, and an online community fostering international dialogue about food safety, sustainable agriculture, alternative energy, and disaster response. Please keep the conversation going by making a tax-deductible donation.

August 16, 2011August 16, 2011

Hiroshima, Soma, Nihonmatsu and Fukushima City

On Aug. 6 we attended the 66th anniversary of the world’s first nuclear attack in Hiroshima, with Yuji Ohashi, a Fukushima City bread company owner who is committed to rebuilding Fukushima in the face of the nuclear fallout.
The Hiroshima victims' memorial
Obon, the August ancestors holiday, is especially poignant this year for those who lost family in the March disaster.
We marked the occasion at a floating lantern ceremony in the ravaged port of Soma, led by fishermen unable to catch their harvest in the irradiated ocean.
The Soma floating lantern ceremony
Monks at the Soma floating lantern ceremony
In Nihonmatsu, 50 km from the still-leaking Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, organic farmer Sugeno planted sunflowers instead of rice on contaminated parts of his land. Sugeno will continue cultivating, growing what he can in greenhouses and otherwise minimizing his customers' exposure. He will work to reduce his land’s contamination each year until he can eventually approach pre-meltdown levels.
Sugeno is sheltering this goat rescued from the evacuation zone.
Ota is the 16th president of his family's 260-year-old premium sake company, Daishichi. Their business is up 70% since the disaster, with more orders from the U.S., less from Europe. But it will be another 2 1/2 years before sake brewed from this year's rice reaches the market.
This wild mushroom on Shinobu Mountain in Fukushima City would normally be edible, if not for the nuclear fallout.

July 25, 2011July 25, 2011

Carry On Fukushima

This video was presented at the Institute for Strategic Leadership‘s “Carry On Fukushima” program in Tokyo on 7/21/11. It includes voices from food producers in the area around the still-leaking Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant:

Ohashi may need to look outside Fukushima now for organic suppliers for his bread. He says we need to learn to coexist with radiation.
Suzuki and Fukumoto are leaving the idyllic farming community of Kaidomari to live in balance with nature elsewhere.
Hongo won’t sell his potentially contaminated rice this year, but he’s eating it himself.
Yoshizawa wants to save his 300 irradiated dairy cows from a death sentence.
Yamamoto was a farming intern when the disaster struck. She decided to stay and volunteer at an evacuation center.
Yoshida is committed to stay and continue farming on the land his family has cultivated for 200 years.

July 13, 2011

“Don’t forget us,” cry Fukushima nuclear evacuees

Tens of thousands of people evacuated due to radioactive fallout from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant are living in shelters and storage unit-style temporary housing. Nearly 100 have committed suicide. Many relocation centers are in highly radioactive areas—sometimes higher than the towns that were evacuated.

On July 12, the evacuees held their first protest in Tokyo, marching from Hibiya Park to parliament, calling for their land to be decontaminated, and for better resettlement conditions. “Don’t forget us” was their rallying cry.

Fujiwara is an animal welfare advocate for Saitama Prefecture. She's helping Yoshizawa try to save his 300 cows from a government-mandated death sentence.
Parliamentarians greeted evacuees outside the Diet.

July 12, 2011

Into the evacuation zone

Hidden under a tarp, wedged between 50-gallon sacks of steaming bean sprouts on a flatbed trailer, we passed unnoticed through the checkpoint into the 30km evacuation zone around the crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. Permits to enter the zone are closely guarded and the review process is slow, so we stowed away with the evacuated dairy farmer Yoshizawa as he made his weekly trip to feed his 300 irradiated cows, which he's keeping alive in defiance of a government order.
This field in Minami-Soma is still littered with boats, four months after the tsunami.
Yoshizawa painted "save them or die trying" on the roof of the barn, the shovel of the back hoe that blocks the road to the ranch, and on signposts all along the road.
Junko Kajino interviews Yoshizawa at his ranch. The rain suits we bought as a cheaper alternative to tyvek safety suits were not a good idea in the heat and sun. We were pouring with hot sweat within minutes.
The cows were intimidated by my camera shoulder mount at first, but they became friendly very quickly.
It was 2 microsieverts per hour at this ice cream stand on the way to the evacuation zone.

July 12, 2011

Evacuated farmer Yoshizawa wants to stand up to Japanese government and nuclear power company

After the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, Yoshizawa cared for his 300 dairy cows without water or electricity. He could hear the explosions as the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, 14 km away.

After days of heavy radiation exposure, Yoshizawa was evacuated with the rest of Namie on March 17. He spraypainted “save them or die trying” on the roof of the barn, and went to Tokyo. He talked his way in to see the chairman of Tokyo Electric Power Company. Both men cried as Yoshizawa begged the chairman to do something to stop the disaster.

Yoshizawa slept outside in Tokyo for a week, keeping vigil and waiting to see government ministers, calling on them for action. Now he travels Japan in his speaker van, proclaiming his refusal of a government order to kill his 300 cows.

Uncanny Terrain is a documentary about organic farmers facing Japan’s nuclear crisis, and an online community fostering dialogue on food safety, sustainable agriculture, alternative energy and disaster response. Please keep the conversation going by making a donation.

cows-630x420 — Junko Kajino on Yoshizawa's ranch inside the evacuation zone.

June 28, 2011July 2, 2011

Fukushima City Nuclear Protest Photo Gallery

Since the Chernobyl disaster, Ruiko Mutou of the Fukushima Anti-Nuclear Network has been campaigning to get the plants in the prefecture shut down.
This woman told the crowd that God created nuclear power and don't worry, he'd take care of them. She was quickly separated from the mic.
He says people in Tokyo need to take responsibility for consuming the electricity produced by the nuclear power plants in Fukushima.

June 28, 2011August 15, 2019

Grandma Yoshida takes cbd oil and instructs the young men’s farm work

Taihei Maruyama, Seiya Yoshida and Junko Kajino in the Yoshidas' vegetable field.
Grandma Yoshida working in the vegetable field.
Exotic bugs on the pesticide-free radish leaves.
Grandma Yoshida is done with the day's farm work.
The Yoshidas' youngest son Seiya on a return visit inspecting radiation and earthquake damage to his beloved mountain. He wants to work for an environmental NGO.

Here you can see grandma Yoshida instructing the young. Her knowledge is highly respected. Recently she was instructed by her doctor to start taking cbd oil. At yoursnutrition you can read all about it.