Non-soil farming sprouts hope in Fukushima

Kawauchi, a farming village 30km from the site of the world’s worst atomic disaster in 25 years, feared for its future as radiation from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant soaked into the soil.

Then Takeo Endo suggested farming without soil.

As paddies that once supplied Japan’s imperial family with rice sit fallow, Endo is leading a local government team that is pioneering a project to grow food in a sealed-off hydroponics factory.

An aluminum-clad, single-storey building the size of a soccer field is under construction that will produce 8,000 heads of lettuce a day. More may be built for tomatoes, strawberries, and other fruit.

“I was concerned that Kawauchi farmers wouldn’t be able to grow rice and vegetables for as long as 10 years,” Endo said. “So I thought: ‘What if we grow them in a building, shutting out radiation completely?’”

Advances in centuries-old technology that now makes use of LED lights and a water solution infused with fertiliser may restore jobs and revive the area worst hit by the record magnitude-9 earthquake that struck on Mar 11, 2011.

Cooperation between researchers, government, and industry to help Fukushima rebuild, offers farmers who lost homes and livelihoods the chance to compete with imports and show Japanese consumers that their food is safe.

Agricultural shipments to Japan jumped 16% to 5.58tn yen (€45.9bn) in 2011 in the wake of the disaster, caused when the quake unleashed a 15m tsunami that claimed more than 18,000 lives and sparked equipment failures at the Tokyo Electric Power nuclear plant.

Almost half a million people were evacuated. Two years on, a meandering arc stretching 20km from the plant defines a no-go zone after reactor meltdowns spewed radioactive particles into the air, soil, and sea.

Japan banned farming around the reactors, ordered the slaughter of more than 5,000 livestock, and started regular testing for radiation.

The prefecture was the nation’s fourth-largest rice producer before the accident. It has slipped to seventh place, with 2012 output down 17%, according to the agriculture ministry.