News

March 29, 2011

Overcoming Tohoku Pacific Ocean Earthquake “Re-establishing Japan, hand in hand”

Special Editorial ~Mission to Rebuild Agriculture~

President YOSHISUKE KISHIDA, of Shin-Norinsha Co., Ltd.

On 11th of March 2011 at 2:46 in the afternoon, an unprecedented earthquake of magnitude 9.0 struck Pacific side of Tohoku and Kanto area in Japan. It was one of the biggest earthquakes we had ever experienced, holding a vast afflicted area including Iwate, Miyagi, Fukushima, Ibaraki, Chiba, and Aomori.

The epicenter was located near the shores, and swift and a gigantic tsunami washed away numbers of beautiful cities and villages.

Numbers of tsunami have hit Sanriku region from the past, and all the residents used to be participating a strict safety exercise. However, the tsunami that struck this time was far more tremendous than anyone in Japan had predicted, and many of the residents couldn’t survive. On 25th of March, the number missing has already risen up to 27,000. It is estimated that the death toll would eventually rise up to more than 30,000.

We give our sincerest condolences to people who had passed away, and pray for the people who still suffer from this disaster in the afflicted areas.

The earthquake also gave a severe damage to the nuclear plants in Fukushima. Not only a huge tremor, but also a tremendous tsunami with height of over than fourteen meters struck the plant, and made the cooling system out of order. The reactor started to overheat, which lead to a horrible disaster.

The residents living within a 30 km radius are told to escape. In this area, most of the industrial and agricultural activities are prohibited for now.

The Japanese government implemented an emergency countermeasure against this disaster. However, most of the citizens in Japan were quite disappointed about this. Handling damaged reactor is a fight against time, but the timing of the action of the government was obviously too slow and weak regardless of the urgent situation. Because of this, more damages were thought to have spread into the sites.

Contrasted with this, the action of the U.S. government was speedy. A carrier ship was soon sent to Sanriku region, and responded to the demand from the Japanese government.

After the earthquake, most of the lifelines were damaged.

First of all, cellular phone, what we thought to be a great help in such a disastrous situation, hardly operated and we couldn’t make a phone call not only in the afflicted areas, but even in the cities. We would like the cell-phone companies to give their best effort to develop the telecommunication technology so that everyone can make a phone call safely after the disasters.

There is also a huge problem of traffic and the distribution system. After the earthquake, most of the major national roads, highways, and railroads became closed to traffic. There still seem to be difficulties in the recovery of Tohoku and Joban expressway, the two main expressways for transportation. The people around Tokyo finally found out that they have undergone a horrifying disaster after they have experienced the panics of the shipment, packed commuter trains, and rolling blackouts.

These rolling blackouts were found afterwards that they would occur a great disorder to the transportation facilities. Since the citizens in Japan started to rely on cars more than trains, the demand of gasoline became so high in an instant, and outreached the supply. People started to make long lines in front of gas stations waiting for hours to fill their tank up.

What is more, it is a serious problem that the radiation leaking from the nuclear plant of Fukushima began to spread into other regions.

A part of agricultural products made in the four prefectures of Fukushima, Ibaraki, Tochigi, and Gunma were suspended from shipment. It is because they were found radioactively contaminated. This doesn’t mean that we will have problems in our health soon after we eat some of them, but the Japanese government implemented such a countermeasure just to be safe. Unfortunately, this led the agricultural industry including distribution system of Eastern Japan into confusion.

There seem to be serious damages on automobile, steels, oils, and other industries.

As the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant was damaged, it is estimated that we will encounter the shortage of 15 million kilowatts of the electricity in Eastern Japan this summer. The rolling blackouts from the lack of electricity is said to result in a serious problem to the Japanese industry.

Because of the situation, the areas around Tokyo and Eastern Japan are forced to save the energy and electricity.

There are also severe damages to the livestock industry. Most of the animal feed was delayed its shipment and the feed mills were suspended, in spite of the farm animals need to be fed everyday.

Dairy industry has more problems because of the radiation leak; the milk in some farms is suspended from shipping out for they were found radioactively contaminated as well as the vegetables. Not only the farms suspended from shipment, but also many of the other farms cannot ship out the milk, for the companies those store milk for the farmers are also damaged by the quake, and are unable to operate. Therefore, much of the milk has no other choice than being disposed.

Agricultural machinery industry has also undergone a big damage. Sendai area, the logistics hub of Tohoku, especially holds many sales branches but many of them were devastated. Some of them are completely nonfunctional because of the quake and tsunami.

The branch office of a tractor implement manufacturer was washed away by tsunami. Some factories of a manufacturer in Kanto were also damaged. All the employees are giving their best effort to reestablish the operating system as soon as possible.

However, the areas those were mainly damaged by the quake were the Pacific side, and it was lucky that there weren’t so many agricultural machinery plants there. Inland areas such as Yamagata prefecture were not so damaged.

The dealers in the coastal area were also devastated. Some of the branches were damaged severely, and some parts supply centers still suffer in this chaotic condition. Fortunately, only few people are believed to have died.

What is more horrible than quakes and tsunamis is the nuclear plant. People living in the cities and villages within 30 km radius from the plant are urged to evacuate. Dealers, also told to escape, have nowhere to operate their business.

The average scale of the agriculture in Tohoku is fairly high, which shows the importance of the area supporting the agriculture in Japan. It is unfortunate that Tohoku is forced to have a handicap by this earthquake. We are still in the stage of investigating the actual damage situation, and we can’t afford to discuss further about how to reconstruct Japanese agriculture.

Many helping hands were led from all over Japan and the world. I have received more than 50 heartwarming letters from various countries caring about the sites, and one of them even kindly told me to stay at the guesthouse for a while if I was worried about the radiation leak. I was once again reassured that the world is one.

Though it was horrifying, we have learned many things from this disaster.

One of them is the importance of food, water, energy, and telecommunication technology supporting our lives and health. Each family should keep firmly in mind that they should be ready to save their own family from any disastrous situations. There was time when stocking rice was acknowledged as a problem, and called into question during the screening process. However, people realized once again by this disaster how important it is to stock food for emergency in a country marking very low food self efficiency like Japan. The stocks for such an emergency should be supplied individually on different levels of scale, such as national, regional, business, and family levels. It is obvious that even if the supply was only stocked on the regional level, people won’t be able to transport them to each family when the material flow stops.

The total amount of damage caused by the quake is estimated to be 15~25 trillion yen, and I suppose by including the indirect damage, the total amount will be over 30 trillion yen.

A great amount of money and a long term of time are needed to overcome the devastation and re-construct the Japanese economy. Japanese government should issue a large amount of government bond for this.

Talking of Japanese agriculture, we must rebuild it as we cooperate with the people in Japan. They have understood how important food is during the disaster, and we might be able to seek for more cooperation than before. It is especially the task of agricultural machinery industry to play a great role and rebuild the agriculture of Japan.

One of the things we should do for the future is to make a strong apparatus with the leadership of the government and the wisdom of all the government officials. The Japanese government says they will establish the ministry of quake restoration. It is obvious that there will be some sort of special project team needed for this situation.

Another thing we need is the fund to support the reconstruction. We can afford to arrange the fund by rising up the consumption tax, or issuing a great amount of government bond. What is more, we may need to restructure some locations of the industry from the Pacific side to the Sea of Japan side, for it is obvious that the Pacific side is tremendously damaged, and there are possibilities of another devastation soon.

The government of Japan should keep these points in mind and create a dynamic future plan.

Agricultural reconstruction committees are organized recently, but I am worried that it will take more than half a year to actually create an action plan. The negotiation for free trade is another immediate problem to solve, and we have to also think about how the Japanese agriculture can survive under such crucial conditions. There is no time to wait.

Just before we tried to shift the Japanese agriculture into export industry, a horrible quake had hit us, and what is worse, the radiation leak problem has occurred from the nuclear plant in Fukushima. We need a countermeasure for radiation problem alone. We need to know how to decontaminate the radiation pollution, and how to produce agricultural products without being contaminated.

If the radioactive materials had just fallen from the sky and exist only on the surface of soils, we need a tractor or an operating machine to remove the contaminated part of soil.

I suppose it will be very difficult constructing another nuclear plant. If so, we should think of an alternative energy to supply electricity in Japan. A renewable energy will play a big role, and there will be special government bond needed to develop new systems such as the biogas generating system.

It was a terrible calamity for Japan indeed, but at the same time it was a chance for all the citizens in Japan to deeply think over and create a long-term strategy to rebuild strong Japan against devastations. We can create a wonderful Japan than ever before by looking at the disaster on this point of view, and can think of it as a good lesson.

Agricultural machinery industry is now on the most important position to reconstruct the agriculture of Japan. We must conquer the disaster as we cooperate with each other, and create a new agriculture and its mechanization.

We give our sincerest condolence again to the victims of this disastrous earthquake, and pray for the rapid restoration of the sites.