5-5 IAN Tsunami

 As is the case so many times and so often in America, when bad things happen, farmers step up to the plate. And so it goes with the situation in Japan. In this instance, the farmers happen to be of Japanese heritage. Nonetheless they are farmers, they are rolling their sleeves up and reaching out.An organization founded by Japanese-American farmers is spearheading an effort to help their counterparts in the disaster zone of northern Japan. The Nisei (NEE-SAY) Farmers League is working with the J.A. Zenchu Farm Cooperative in Tokyo to distribute donated funds directly to small farms impacted by the earthquake and tsunami. Nisei member Curtis Miyake (mee-YOK-ay) says the tsunami inundated crop land with sea water. “Hard to fathom what they’re going through with their farmland saturated with seawater. I have no idea how you would get rid of it. All I can think of is putting more watered down on it and pushing it out of the soil.

 Farmers League President Manuel Cunha (COON-ya) says the idea is for farmers to help farmers. “They need to get money so they can get themselves back into farming because the land that was devastated was 67,000 acres at a value to that country and those farmers was $8.2 billion.

For information about helping - farmers can call the Nisei Farmers League in Fresno at 559-251-8468 or the Consul General of Japan in San Francisco at 415-777-3533.