JPN FIVE YEARS AFTER: No plans for over 40% of post-3/11 purchased land in coastal areas

[yuiyoshida]

THE ASAHI SHIMBUN

More than 40 percent of coastal land purchased by municipal governments in three prefectures after the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami remains vacant with no utilization plans, an Asahi Shimbun survey showed.

Municipalities hit by the disasters in March 2011 relocated residential areas to hilly and inland areas and purchased coastal plots from their owners.

The purchased lands total about 2,028 hectares in Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures. Municipal governments are mainly making plans for companies to set up factories or offices on the vacant properties, but progress is going slowly.

The Asahi Shimbun asked 26 coastal municipalities in the three prefectures about the status of those purchased lands as of February this year. At that point they had decided on how to utilize 1,150 hectares, or 57 percent, of the land.

The municipalities have no plans, or are still considering how to use the remaining 878 hectares, or 43 percent. And in 188 of those 878 hectares, the municipalities are not likely to work out plans for utilizing them in fiscal 2016, which starts in April.

http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/recovery/AJ201603090025

[KamaAina]

1. Farm them?

As you probably know, Japan heavily subsidizes its domestic rice crop, because Japanese people believe that imported rice is inferior. There was a nationwide panic a few years ago when the crop failed due to poor weather. Japanese consumers were frantically trying to figure out which imported varieties were acceptable. I do believe that California topped the list, even though we only grow the thirsty crop because a handful of counties in the Sacramento Valley sewed up one-third of the Sacramento River's flow in the 19th century.

There might also be a market for organic daikon, gobo and other Japanese veggies. Of course, Fukushima prefecture presents some issues of its own.