Membership in fisheries cooperatives in the three northeastern Japan prefectures hardest hit by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami tumbled 24.4 percent after the disaster, sharper than the national average, a Kyodo News tally based on data from their unions showed Thursday.The sharp decrease came as members abandoned the industry after losing their homes or fishing boats in the massive tsunami or evacuating their hometowns due to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear crisis, officials of the cooperatives said.The total number of fisheries cooperative members in the three prefectures -- Miyagi, Iwate a…READ FULL ARTICLE
