Filmmakers Junko Kajino and Ed M. Koziarski talk about making the documentary Uncanny Terrain, about organic farmers facing Japan’s nuclear crisis. http://tinyurl.com/uncannyterrain
Why we’re making Uncanny Terrain
Fukushima 1 Year After the Meltdown
Fukushima farmers’ rice harvest sits in stockpiles, mostly unsold after radioactive cesium was detected in samples in and outside of the prefecture.
Unable to sell their rice, Fukushima organic farmers have become educators, promoting understanding among their customers about the interconnections of land use, energy consumption, and traditional culture.
Despite staggering odds, most of the farmers remain committed to preserving and recovering their land for future generations.
We return to Fukushima this March to capture the recovery efforts a year after the 3/11 tsunami, earthquake and nuclear disaster.
To support this endeavor, nonprofit arts support organization High Concept Laboratories presents Fukushima: 1 Year After the Meltdown, a benefit reception for Uncanny Terrain, Sunday, Feb. 5, 5-8 p.m. at 1401 W. Wabansia in Chicago.
From 6-7 p.m. we’ll screen a preview video with live accompaniment by our composer Tatsu Aoki and his band The MIYUMI Project, which performs a fusion of jazz and Japanese classical music.
Tatsu is a jazz bassist and a leader of the Chicago Asian American Jazz Festival and Tsukasa Taiko Legacy.
David Tanimura will showcase his digital collages inspired by the nuclear crisis. Refreshments will be served. The reception is free but rsvp is required, and tax-deductible donations to the film are welcome.
Not in Chicago? Can’t make it? Want to help today? We continue to gratefully accept online tax-deductible donations in support of Uncanny Terrain.
Harvest Time in Fukushima
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"Yes we can support local produce." A rice field in Iitatemura, uncultivated by government order. -
Fukushima City Lantern Festival -
Fukushima City Lantern Festival -
Fukushima City Lantern Festival -
Sugeno's rice harvest team: Serbian volunteer Milo, daughter Mizuho, and Owada and his grandparents, evacuated from Namie. -
84-year-old rice farmer Yasukawa is defying a government order to burn his rice harvest. -
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Yasukawa shows conflicting government orders regarding his rice. -
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Watanabe turns over his field in hopes of burying radioactive cesium deeper than his vegetables' roots will reach. -
Mt. Azuma, Fukushima -
Mt. Azuma, Fukushima -
Sunset over Mt. Shinobu, Fukushima City.
Just as the U.S. State Department announces that it’s safe to be here, it’s time for us to leave. We conclude our 20 weeks living and working among the organic farmers and food producers of Fukushima, a week after the State Department narrowed its travel advisory against visiting the area around the power plant from 80 kilometers to the Japanese government’s 20-kilometer evacuation zone.
Seven months since the beginning of the crisis, Japan stumbles toward recovery. Evacuated communities are being reopened near the nuclear plant, even as many efforts to decontaminate land are proving ineffective. With a number of notable exceptions, testing of rice and vegetables is showing much less contamination than was expected based on results in Chernobyl. Researchers investigate the reasons for these levels, considering the differing composition of Japanese soil, particularly certain minerals and bacteria that may remove radioactive cesium or prevent plants from absorbing it—bacteria that may thrive in organically cultivated land.
But the food testing regime is still sporadic, and no amount of lower test results will be sufficient to convince much of the public that Fukushima food is safe to eat. The organic farmers here toil to repair their land using natural methods (land that many of their families have tilled since before the U.S. was a country), to grow their food as free as possible of radionuclides, and to accurately communicate the condition of their produce to consumers. Constantly exposed to background radiation and inhaled particles in their fields, as well as from food and water, the farmers rank with cleanup workers in the groups at greatest risk of suffering health damage.
We will edit the film in Chicago through the fall and winter, and return to Japan next March to cover how the farmers weathered the seasons and how they fare as they prepare to plant again, a year after the disaster. In the meantime, we still need your support to cover the costs of postproduction. Please spread the word and if you can please make a tax-deductible donation to the project.
Sugeno fights for his Fukushima farm
Seiju Sugeno is an organic farmer in Towa, Nihonmatsu, 50 km from the failed Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. The Abukuma Mountains partly shielded his rice fields from contamination, but runoff is an ongoing threat. Chairman of the Fukushima Organic Farmers Network, Sugeno works aggressively to clean his land and prevent his crops from absorbing radioactive cesium. He will work to reduce the contamination year by year, rigorously testing his yield and reporting any contamination he finds. His 23-year-old daughter Mizuho works with him. He hopes she can build a sustainable life for herself here.
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 tax-deductible donation.
The Harvest Approaches
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Sugeno relaxes in the grass beside his radish field, Geiger counter in hand. -
Junko and Sugeno finish planting radishes in his mountaintop field in Nihonmatsu. -
Guests at Sugeno's farm enjoy flowers transplanted from the evacuation zone. -
Asami looks out on his rice field in the mountains of Kitakata. -
Asami shows Junko his favorite vantage point. -
Asami and his intern Ota in the chicken coop. -
Watanabe's fruit is showing undetectable radiation levels despite surrounding contamination in Fukushima City. -
Masanori Yoshida looks out on his ancestral land, foreseeing big changes ahead. -
Yumi and Masanori Yoshida care for their vegetable garden. -
Yumi Yoshida displays her sweet potatoes. -
Junko digs up a choice bunch of sweet potatoes. -
The Yoshidas have been eating a lot of sweet potatoes. Sales of the bumper crop have been slow.
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.
Can’t sell rice, but has to grow it anyway
Takahashi was banned from selling rice grown on his land in Nishigo Village, Nishishirakawa-gun, Fukushima, due to soil contamination from the nuclear disaster. But he was also told that to receive compensation for the lost income, he must grow the rice. So he’s planting the crop, expecting it will never be eaten.
Fukushima pride is strong close to evacuation zone
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Ohashi owns a successful baked goods company in Fukushima City. He has used grains from organic farmers in Fukushima Prefecture, but now he may have to look elsewhere. Even if the grains are uncontaminated, the stigma against Fukushima produce would likely hurt sales. Ohashi’s health is frail but he has no intention to leave despite typical background radiation here of 1 microsievert/hour. He says the disaster has strengthened local pride, and people here are learning to living with radiation. -
A pair of comedians bartend at the Showtime bar in Fukushima City. I sat down with my camera gear and they kept calling me Michael Moore (pronounced mo-ah). -
Sugiuchi was banned from selling his crops due to high contamination levels found near his farm in Haramachi. Now he’s researching soil remediation. -
Mrs. Sugiuchi watches one of their greenhouses in Haramachi being tested for radiation. -
.7 millirems (7 microsieverts) per hour on the highway in Iitatemura. -
4.1 millirems/hour (14,350 counts per minute or 41 microsieverts/hour) on a mountain road in Iitatemura. The town is mostly abandoned but on Sunday there were some people around. They apparently came back to check on their property. -
The edge of the evacuation zone in Iitatemura.
Lone nuclear opponent in town, now won’t sell his crops
40 years ago, Hongo says he was the only person in Samegawa to oppose nuclear power in Fukushima. Since the accident, Samegawa has been declared safe for cultivation. But Hongo doesn’t trust the numbers. He’s only growing enough food to feed himself. He won’t feed others crops that could be contaminated. Instead, he’s planting sunflowers in hopes of decontaminating the land.
Young farmers fleeing agricultural community
Hiruta has spent decades recruiting farmers from across Japan to join him in the tiny agricultural community of Kaidomari, nestled among tall pines in the mountains on the edge of Iwaki in Fukushima. But since the nuclear disaster, especially the younger farmers are fleeing.
Fukumoto (left) is returning to Hiroshima with his free range dairy cows, unwilling to let them graze on contaminated grass. Suzuki (center) and her husband are divided about whether to stay or go. Background radiation here is .4 microsieverts/hour outside, .3 inside.