The Yonabaru-Nishihara Town Fisheries Cooperative, which accounts for more than 90% of the harvest of hijiki in Okinawa Prefecture, said that it was difficult to remove fine pumice stones mixed in the hijiki before shipping, and this season's harvest was just beginning. Canceled and canceled shipping.
In Okinawa Prefecture, hijiki is harvested from March to May every year, and the Yonabaru-Nishihara Town Fisheries Cooperative started harvesting on the 17th of this month to remove foreign substances such as sand.
However, it is said that fine pumice stones with a diameter of about 1 mm to 5 mm were found in the eruption of Fukutoku-Okanoba, a submarine volcano in the Ogasawara Islands that occurred in August last year.
After repeated work, it was difficult to completely remove the pumice stones, so we stopped harvesting this season and stopped shipping 1.7 tons of harvest.
The fishery cooperative expected to harvest 50 tons this season, which is twice as much as last year, but the damage is expected to increase from 6 million yen to 7 million yen because it can no longer be shipped.
Shouma Ifuku, who is in charge of harvesting hijiki seaweed at the Yonabaru-Nishiharacho Fisheries Cooperative Association, said, "The quality of the hijiki seaweed itself, such as length and thickness, was very good, so both the fishery cooperative and the shipping destination were shocked." I was talking.