A Tokyo senior is waging an individual effort to get elderly people to eat rice grown in Fukushima Prefecture to help local farmers struggling with rumors that their crops are radioactive, and to make sure the grain isn't consumed by more vulnerable younger generations.
Consumers have shunned Fukushima rice due to radiation fears stemming from the triple-meltdown crisis that started last March at Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima No. 1 atomic plant.
"The elderly must eat Fukushima rice," Hino resident Hidekazu Hirai, 68, told The Japan Times on Monday. Compared with young people, the elderly are believed less prone to the harmful effects of radiation.