Ag product restrictions to be by city & town rather than by prefecture

At his 4 April press conference, Cabinet Secretary Edano announced that restrictions on agricultural products will be restructured to be by city and town rather than by prefecture. Currently, 5 April, shipments from Fukushima, Ibaraki, Tochigi and Gumma Prefectures of spinach and other leafy vegetables are stopped. In Chiba Prefecture, spinach from Katori and Tago, as well as spinach, chrysanthemum greens, celery, parsley and other leafy vegetables from Asahi are stopped.

MAFF, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, has a clickable map of statistics by city, town and prefecture. This will allow us to estimate the economic effect of this change.

The effect on consumer perceptions will be harder to estimate. Consumers often identify foods by prefecture of origin rather than by city or town of origin.