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Monday, April 25, 2011

Japan : More seawater damage on farmland found

Article from NHK News :

" More farmland in the city of Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture, northeastern Japan was found to have been damaged by seawater.

Most of the farmland along the sea coast in Sendai was submerged in seawater when the tsunami hit the area on March 11th.

About 78 percent of the 2,300 hectares of farmland cannot be planted this year because the salt level is too high.

The city and a local agricultural cooperative tested the salt level in the remaining 22 percent, about 500 hectares, to see if rice saplings could be planted this season.

They found that about 60 hectares of soil in which the damage was thought to be slight actually had too a high salt level to plant.

Seawater is believed to have come upstream along the irrigation canal into the farmland when the tsunami hit.

The agricultural cooperative plans to water the farmland to remove the salt before planting rice in late May, at the earliest.

The planting would be about one month later than usual and the impact of the natural disaster on farming in Japan continues to grow."

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