Fisherman from a local fisheries cooperative in Fukushima Prefecture resumed offshore fishing operations on Wednesday following fishing being suspended in August after contaminated water leaked into the ocean from a stricken nuclear plant in the prefecture.

A fleet of 21 trawlers set sail from the Matsukawaura Port in Soma City on Wednesday morning, with the head of the Soma-Futaba Fisheries Cooperative, Hiroyuki Sato, urging the fishermen to overcome the current difficult circumstances.

The cooperative, which falls under the jurisdiction of the Fukushima Prefectural Federation of Fisheries Cooperative Associations, decided Tuesday to resume operations, with officials stating that levels of radiation found in marine life and sea water in the area have been confirmed safe.

"We have to show TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Co.), the Japanese government and people everywhere we are determined to resume full scale fishing operations," Hiroyuki Sato, head of the cooperative, told local media Wednesday.

The tests conducted prior to the cooperative deciding to resume test-fishing Tuesday, involved stringent tests conducted on 100 kinds of fish and seafood products, the federation said.

The test results, according to the federation, revealed that radiation levels in excess of government standards were not detected and 95 of the products were cleared, while five were found to contain miniscule levels of radiation.

The current operations will see the fishermen limited to catching only 16 kinds of fish and marine products, from an area more than 50 km away from the crippled Daiichi nuclear power plant and at a depth of more than 150 meters deep, the cooperative said.

The cooperative added that squid and octopus hauls caught during the testing time after official fisheries' operations were suspended following the initial nuclear crisis at the Daiichi plant in Japan's northeast, detected no radioactive materials.

Wednesday's catch will be thoroughly tested to ensure that all fish and marine products caught contain radioactive levels below 50 becquerels, far lower than the government limit of 100 becquerels per kilogram, the officials said.

The cooperative also said that once the products have passed the safety checks, they will be sent to market.

Separately, local officials in the town of Hirono, located within a 30 km radius of the leaking nuclear plant, said Wednesday that they are preparing to resume rice shipments, following voluntary suspension of rice product shipments from the area after the March 2011 nuclear disaster.

With rice yields from last year testing within the acceptable national limits, officials said they will test all the rice harvested from 110 hectares -- about half of the total paddies in the town -- and provided they pass the new stricter guidelines, will be shipped to market.

Local officials said, however, that skepticism could continue to hamper the town's rice sales, and that continued efforts would be made by both farmers and officials to regain consumers' trust. Endi

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