Third in a series SENDAI (Kyodo) Wearing a yellow shirt and checkered slacks, Shoji Shida looks more like a trading company employee than someone who works for an agricultural cooperative office.

As business manager of Japan Agricultural Cooperatives' (JA) office in the town of Yamoto, Miyagi Prefecture, Shida spends his days before a personal computer, searching for new business opportunities.

"The (Japanese) agricultural industry has entered a marketing era," Shida, 45, said. "We are not an industry of mass marketing but rather a one-on-one business. We can get a lot of interesting business depending on how we arrange it."