yoshida – Uncanny Terrain

April 14, 2012April 14, 2012

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Hiroaki Yoshida had his rice tested at several labs. None of it showed any detectible radiation.
Despite testing clean, Yoshida struggles to find new customers for rice grown on the southern outskirts of Fukushima.
To fight a dropoff in sales, Yuko and Hiroaki Yoshida bring their rice and mochi into Tokyo every weekend for the Aoyama Farmers Market.
Grandma Yoshida says anything you eat could be radioactive, but you still have to eat.

January 30, 2012

Eating Fukushima

Some floating lantern ceremony

by Ed M. Koziarski
North Avenue Magazine
Jan. 28, 2012

When does a victim become a perpetrator? That’s the question that kept coming up as we made our way across the irradiated landscape.

Many foreigners fled Japan after the tsunami triggered a meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant last March. My wife Junko Kajino and I went the opposite way, spending five months inside the U.S.-declared 50-mile no-go radius for our in-progress documentary Uncanny Terrain.

September 12, 2011September 12, 2011

The Harvest Approaches

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.

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.

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.

June 23, 2011July 2, 2011

New intern on Colors of the Four Seasons Farm

Maruyama, the new Hokkaido University intern on the Yoshidas' farm in Hanawa, Fukushima.
Masanori Yoshida shows Haruyama the ropes in the chicken coop.
My horse, my horse, my kingdom for a horse. Maruyama recites Shakespeare he learned on a farm in Australia.