Posted on 07/18/2011 5:08:14 PM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
'Colossal blunder' on radioactive cattle feed / Govt officials admit responsibility for foul-up that let tainted beef enter nation's food supply
The Yomiuri Shimbun
Officials of the Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry have admitted they did not consider the possibility of cattle ingesting straw contaminated by radioactive substances emitted from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
"This is nothing less than a colossal blunder by our ministry. It was beyond our expectations that straw would become a source of radioactive contamination," a ministry official said.
A total of 143 beef cattle suspected of being contaminated with radioactive cesium after ingesting straw that was stored outdoors have been shipped from Fukushima Prefecture and distributed to wholesalers, retailers and consumers in various prefectures.
(Excerpt) Read more at yomiuri.co.jp ...
P!
Is there an ongoing translation problem here? Cattle normally don’t consume “straw” as it is known in English.
What I love about their culture - there is shame even for government officials. If only we could only get one percent of US government workers to realize they screwed up and admit it.
It seems that their choice of word(straw) is wrong, but apparently they are sticking to it.
Hay is grass that is mowed, dried, and usually baled. Straw is what is left after harvesting wheat- in other words, empty stems.
Learn something new every day...
I’m a country bumpkin- what can I say?
Ex-SKF Excerpt follows
By the way, it turns out that the rice hay that cattle farmers in Tohoku fed their cows with was not due to the shortage or unavailability of other types of feed. Rice hay is an integral part of the cows' diet, as it nicely blend fat with the red meat ("Shimofuri") when ingested. So the cattle farmers feed their meat cows with rice hay before the cows are sent to be processed.
At any rate, this is a colossal failure by the Japanese government that is absolutely inexcusable. Heck, we posted links to Freerepublic even demonstrating that outside feeds could not and should not even be used. The USA learned that during the nuclear testing days when they irradiated us like the Japanese are now getting irradiated. So every government has to always make the same stupid mistakes ? Cannot just one government learn from another governments previous mistakes ?
Definitely worse things to be.
It was rice hay and there appears to be no English word for rice hay. So the translators pick straw.
Funny how things have changed. Union conscripts who did not know left from right were taught to march with amall bunches of hay and straw (which they knew apart) tied to their feet. ‘Hayfoot, strawfoot, hayfoot...’
So the rice plants (hay, after harvest) are a finishing feed, much like corn is used here, to get better marbled meat.
LOL!!!!
Great picture!
“I think it was probably meant to be “hay”, but to tell the truth, I have no idea what the difference between straw and hay is.”
Hay such as Timothy is grown as a feed stock/forage,when it goes into seed we cut it then it is raked into rows then Baled or rolled,Straw is a stalk from the wheat plant after the grain is harvested,I know of no nutritional value, we used it as bedding in the pens.
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