A Decade On, Fukushima Farmers Fear Nuclear-Tainted Water’s Impact on Business

A laboratory technician puts chopped beef from cattle bred in Fukushima into a plastic container while preparing it for cesium testing at Fukushima Agricultural Technology Centre in Koriyama, Fukushima prefecture, Japan, on Nov. 2, 2021. Sakura Murakami/Reuters

IWAKI, Japan—Fukushima farmers fear the Japanese government’s planned release of water from the crippled power plant could revive concerns about contamination and again hit the price of their produce, undoing a decade of slow recovery from nuclear disaster.

Japan plans to release more than 1 million tonnes of contaminated water from the plant in the country’s northeast into the sea after treating it, as the site reaches storage limits for the water. Although international authorities support the plan, it has sparked concern from neighbors China and South Korea and worried local fishermen and farmers.