My brain can't quite grasp という beyond a trivial example

I’ve studied the Noun という Noun grammar point.
「げんき」という教科書です。A textbook called Genki.
「ジェームズ」というおじさんです。A middle-aged man called James.

Came across use of という this in my reading last night. I can’t quite get what to make of it in this instance.

実は今、日本の山ではイノシシやシカの数が増えていて、近くの畑の野菜などが食べられてしましうというとても困ったことが、日本中のいろいろな所で起きています。

近くの畑の野菜などが食べられてしましう - unfortunately being able to eat things like vegetables from nearby field
とても困ったことが - a very unfortunate event

I couldn’t quite put my finger on how to join these phrases using という

Unfortunately という has many guises so I’ve not found it straightforward to answer without disppearing down a rabbithole.

thanks

Obviously I can bang this into a translator for an answer, but looking for a pointer to a good resource or a bit of an explanation on how to advance my 「ジェームズ」という馬鹿者だよ knowledge.

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The という in this instance is behaving in the way you mentioned at the start, Noun という Noun.
The second noun here being こと. Imagine the とても困った part as an adjective phrase to further describe こと after the 近くの畑の野菜などが食べられてしましう phrase.
So a possible translation could be: …the very unfortunate event of things like vegetables from the local fields being eaten [by the boar and deer]…

Someone please correct me if I am wrong.

As for resources I can’t provide any but I hope this will clear some confusion up

I also want to point out that this is the passive form of 食べる instead of potential because the vegetables are being eaten by the increasing population of boar and deer.

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Thanks.
I still can’t quite grasp how to express it in English though, (or the passive form for that matter).
Is there a list of options that I can mentally iterate over to make a selection

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This site has some good explanations. There are English translations which will probably help you get better at expressing it in English.

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Does this help?

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Thanks, really useful to see all those different definitions.

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