By Agustín de Gracia

Fukushima, Japan, Jan 23 (EFE).- The farmers and fishermen of Japan's Fukushima region are slowly regaining their production rate nine years after the deadly nuclear accident in 2011, and believe that things could return to normal with time and patience.

"It will happen gradually. We have to be patient," said Koichi Aoki, director of the Hydroponic Producers' Association in Ono, around 50 kilometers (31 miles) southwest of the Daiichi nuclear reactor, the site of the 2011 nuclear disaster.

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 Mar. 11, 2011, a magnitude-9 earthquake and subsequent tsunami destroyed four of the six reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, which led to the worst nuclear tragedy since Chernobyl in 1986 and forced the evacuation of around 164,000 people.

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 Japan, the food radiation limit is 100 becquerels per kilogram, much lower than the 1,250 becquerel limit established by the European Union and 1,200 in the United States.

However, despite the inspections and growing exports, countries such as China have maintained a ban on a wide range of farm products from Fukushima, while the US has imposed restrictions on some goods.

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 Daiichi, expressed hope that the sector willreturn to normalcy with time.

"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

© 2020 EFE News Services (U.S.) Inc., source EFE Ingles