No livestock farmers apply for government help

SENDAI — No livestock farmers in the four prefectures worst hit by the March disaster have applied for a government aid program to help them resume operating, apparently because the qualification terms make it impossible, local authorities said.

Under the support program, the government offers subsidies to livestock farmers to remove tsunami debris and repair facilities. To apply, they are required first to form a union with at least five households as members, and the group is then required to begin operating as a collective, with jointly owned and run cattle, pig and poultry barns.

But many livestock farmers in the four prefectures — Aomori, Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima — operate as independently run farms, and it is hard for them to operate jointly as their farms are located some distance from each other, according to the authorities.

In Aomori, Iwate and Miyagi prefectures, a total of about 450 cattle, 4,000 pigs and 175,000 chickens were lost in the tsunami.

In Fukushima, local authorities have yet to determine the number of livestock that perished because the nuclear disaster hampers fact-finding.

However, the age of farmers in the disaster-struck areas may also be a factor in the dismal response to the aid program. As many small livestock farmers in those coastal areas were advanced in age, a considerable number are believed to have decided to pull out of livestock farming in the wake of the disaster.

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