Consumers are supporting farmers by buying shiitake mushrooms that survived the January 1 earthquake in the Noto Peninsula in central Japan. The farm where Seiji Ueno and his colleagues grow mushrooms in the town of Noto, Ishikawa Prefecture, was hit hard by the 7.6-magnitude quake.
Some mushrooms were destroyed amid subsequent disruptions to water and electricity supplies, while many others that survived were overgrown for sale, said Ueno, 45. But Ueno and his colleagues sold overgrown mushrooms online as "Fukko Shiitake" (reconstruction shiitake). Orders poured in from across Japan, and they sold out on the first day.
Ueno said he was struck "speechless" when he went to the farm, which he took over from his father in 2016, just after the temblor. The vinyl greenhouse with a floor space of 180 square meters was a mess, with pillars and shelves collapsed and mushroom beds scattered across the ground, he said.
Source: nippon.com