1.   The government says farmers are doing nicely, thank you, and that savings in agricultural cooperatives are rising.

2.   The report also outlined the role agricultural cooperatives, the largest creditors to the mortgage companies, played in the fiasco.

3.   The report, co-drafted with the agriculture ministry, also outlined the amount lent by agricultural cooperatives to the jusen.

4.   Among the biggest losers in the collapse of Japan Leasing will be the agricultural cooperatives, which lend to farmers and businesses in the countryside.

5.   And it must share responsibility for supervising labor credit unions with the Labor Ministry and oversee agricultural cooperatives with the Agricultural Ministry.

6.   And yet the housing lenders still owed trillions of yen to the banks and agricultural cooperatives from which they borrowed.

7.   At that point, the Finance Ministry and Bank of Japan would follow with tax credits and preferential loans for the agricultural cooperatives and the small banks.

8.   Banks and agricultural cooperatives will pick up the rest of the bill.

9.   A company, Sun-Diamond Growers, an agricultural cooperative, had been convicted of giving improper gifts to Mike Espy, the former secretary of agriculture.

10.   Agricultural cooperatives and other financial institutions that lent to the jusen will dispose of the rest of the bad loans.