Ayako Sato, 48, is happy when she gets comments from customers in the correspondence section of money transfer forms.
Ever since her 50-year-old husband, Tsukasa, established a company in 1994 to ship rice directly to customers, Ayako has never failed to write letters every month to buyers.
Tsukasa came up with the idea of setting up the company, Tsukasa Farm, when he sent rice to relatives in 1993, when the country suffered a crop failure.
He received 3.2 hectares of rice paddies from his father when he set up the company. At the same time, he bought 8.4 hectares of farmland.