Chapter 25:Fukushima Accident Fallout in Food and Fodder in Germany

In the framework of German precautionary radiation protection following nuclear incidents or accidents with substantial release of radioactive substances, environmental radioactivity monitoring should give priority to the so-called “representative media”.4 Milk, leek (as an example of leafy vegetables) and pasture vegetation, respectively, are regarded as representative media for food of animal origin, food of plant origin and fodder. Thus, the Coordinating Office had appropriate sources to test the sensitivity of the available measurement capability and working procedures. The air filter measurements of the German network for determining trace radioactive substances in the atmosphere indicated that the relevant nuclides5 were the gamma-emitters I-131(t½ = 8,02 days6), Cs-134 (t½ = 2.06 year6) and Cs-137 (t½ = 30.2 years6). This paper describes the efforts to determine the variation of the activities of these nuclides in the samples in April and Mai 2011 by low-level gamma-spectrometry.