FUW official makes headlines in Japan

Farmers’ Union of Wales vice president Glyn Roberts, who runs a beef and sheep farm in Snowdonia, has had a hectic time recently giving dozens of media interviews to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear explosion.

His views and a picture of him on his Ysbyty Ifan farm have even appeared in the world’s second largest newspaper “Asahi Shimbun” – a Japanese daily broadsheet with a circulation of over 8.5 million – after he was interviewed by their Europe editor Wataru Sawamura who travelled to North Wales from his London base.

“Following the powerful explosion that badly damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant after Japan’s devastating earthquake in March, he was keen to find out my views on the lasting effects of the Chernobyl incident,” said Mr Roberts.

Mr Roberts runs one of the 359 Snowdonia farms still experiencing restrictions on moving sheep as a result of the fallout from the plume of radioactivity that escaped from the Ukrainian power plant on April 26 1986.