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Retailers and consumer protection organizations have urged the Indonesian government to temporarily halt the importation of fresh produce from Japan, after the country refused to certify exported products as radiation-free.

“I admire Japan’s honesty, they are willing to admit that they cannot provide 'radiation-free' certification with every product,” said Tutum Rahanta, the executive director of the Indonesian Retail Merchants Association (Aprindo), on Sunday. 

“But at the same time, our government has an obligation to protect our consumers.”

On Saturday, a spokesman for Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Satoru Satoh, said that such certification was impossible and impractical — arguing that the Japanese government had already conducted tight monitoring of its exports and issued certification with products to indicate their origin.

“The Japanese government and local governments are every day monitoring the level of radioactivity in vegetables, fruit and agricultural products,” Satoh said at a press conference at the Asean building in Jakarta.

“It monitors the level of radioactivity which remains low by Japanese standard — Japanese standard is very strict in this sense. If those products register lower than the limit, they [farmers] are allowed to sell [the product] to the market. This is controlled within Japan.”

Tutum said Japan’s reaction was understandable considering the country was still dealing with many problems after the devastating earthquake and tsunami happened on March.

“We shouldn’t push Japan to meet our demand, they are dealing with enough problems already,” he said.

However, he said, Aprindo would comply with government regulations and would prefer not to import fresh produce from Japan without such certification.

“For canned or packaged products, the impact is not as serious, we hope, because packaged products have undergone several processes already,” he said.

Tutum said Japan’s honesty about the difficulty of issuing such certification should be an example for Indonesia.

“They could have complied with our government’s demand by faking such certification, but they have admitted the difficulties,” he said.

Husna Zahir, the chairwoman of the Indonesian Consumer Protection Foundation (YLKI), said the Indonesian government was right to demand Japan provide radiation-free certification.

“Our government is obviously incapable of conducting screening on every imported product, we can only ask the exporter to do the job,” she said.

“And if Japan has admitted that it is nearly impossible to do so, then our best option, for now, is to stop importing products from that country,” she said.

Radiation has been found in Japan and it is reasonable for Indonesia to request some kind of guarantee on the safety of food imports, Husna said.

Husna also applauded Japan's honesty.

“It takes a lot courage to make such statement. We can see that Japan is a country who doesn’t like to lie to its customers,” she said.