DAFF ceases radionuclide testing of imported Japanese food

The Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF) has announced it will cease testing food imported from Japan for radioactive contamination.

After Japan’s Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear facility sustained damage in March 2011, DAFF implemented a precautionary monitoring program, the Imported Food Inspection Scheme (IFIS).

The scheme was based on assessment policy from Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) and the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA), which advised on the types of foods that should be subject to monitoring and testing for radionuclides, including which prefectures that contaminated food could be sourced from.

Foods monitored for radionuclides include milk and milk products, rice and cereals, seafood, seaweed, fruit, vegetables, tea and dried mushrooms. From September 2012 to January 2014, the monitoring was targeted to fish, tea and dried mushrooms from the prefectures of Chiba, Fukushima, Ibaraki, Miyagi, Saitama, Tochigi, Tokyo and Yamagata.

Results from more than 1400 tests under the IFIS program showed that all samples passed the radionuclide screening test, DAFF says.

ARPANSA’s latest assessment reviewed the current targeted monitoring program and recognised the ongoing recovery and decontamination efforts in Japan. Based on the ARPANSA assessment, FSANZ has announced that the risk to human health posed by radionuclides in food from Japan remains negligible.

As such, IFIS testing for radionuclides in food from Japan ceased on 23 January.

DAFF says that, while radionuclide testing will cease, all food imported from Japan will continue to be monitored for compliance with Australian standards and will be subject to the same routine testing applied to all imported foods.

More information is available from the ARPANSA website: www.arpansa.gov.au.