By Agustín de
Fukushima,
"It will happen gradually. We have to be patient," said
Aoki was at a greenhouse full of strawberries ready to be picked. The facility also produces tomatoes and asparagus, mainly selling to large supermarkets.
On
The region's farms were affected due to the soil, water and tree bark getting contaminated by radioactive matter.
This destroyed the local economy in a prefecture which has the third-highest agricultural production in the country.
However, farmers' prospects are improving with time, as official data showed that in 2018 agricultural exports reached 218 tons, a 42 percent rise from the year after the disaster.
Even the schools in Fukushima now use around 40 percent local produce as ingredients - a similar level to before the 2011 disaster.
"People have begun to understand that what we produce here is safe," said Aoki, who heads a cooperative formed by 21 farmers.
Fukushima farmers attribute "rumors" to bad press surrounding their products after the disaster, as the produce is monitored for radioactivity in regular inspections.
A center for agricultural technology situated near Fukushima continuously tests samples of farm and marine products in order to check their radiation levels.
In 2019, none of the samples of the agricultural and aquaculture products showed radioactivity levels above acceptable standards.
In
However, despite the inspections and growing exports, countries such as
Authorities have also established facilities to test marine samples, including a center near the city of Iwaki which analyzes 150 samples every week and where 99.8 percent of the samples analyzed since 2018 have tested negative for concentration of hazardous levels of radioactive cesium.
However, Fukushima's fishing industry is yet to recover from the disaster, with the catch in 2018 barely reaching 15.5 percent of the levels before the nuclear accident.
Despite favorable test results, Fukushima fishermen have faced many hurdles in finding markets for their products, which continue to hold a bad reputation, with buyers opting to purchase from other regions.
Hishashi Maeda, manager of a trawlers' cooperative in Onahama, 66 km south of
"We are determined to be patient and keep working hard... otherwise the distribution of fish will drop," said Maeda, holding the limited catch of the day on his back, ready to be sold. EFE
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