April Produce Pioneers

Ikeda Brothers

By David Eddy
Senior Western Editor

	Taken in the late 1920s in the Arroyo Grande Valley, CA, this photo shows lettuce fields to the left and pole peas on the right. The man standing next to the car is Juzo Ikeda, the patriarch of Ikeda Brothers. In 1905, Juzo immigrated to the Hawaiian Islands from Japan.

WHAT NO ONE knows the importance of perseverance like a vegetable grower. Working in a business that’s so dependent on factors such as the weather that are completely beyond their control, vegetable growers have a high regard for good ol’ stick-to-itiveness. Few growers personify that trait more than this month’s AVG Produce Pioneer, Juzo Ikeda, who faced, and overcame, a series of almost unimaginable obstacles.

Consider that in 1905, though he was just 17 years old, Juzo immigrated to the Hawaiian Islands from Japan to harvest sugarcane. Looking to carve out a better life for himself, the young man sailed for San Francisco the following year. He arrived just in time for the infamous earthquake and subsequent fire. Still, he was able to find work in the sugar beet fields south of Salinas.

But he would have a much harder time making it than his fellow growers. In a sign of what was to come, in 1913 the state of California passed the first of a series of “Alien Land Laws.” California residents ineligible for citizenship were no longer allowed to own property. That meant that a Japanese immigrant like Juzo could not own a farm in the state. He was later able to get around that by purchasing land in another man’s name, with the proviso that the land be deeded to Juzo’s oldest son, Kazuo, when he became an adult. Kazuo was born to Juzo and his wife Sei in 1918. The other two brothers were Seirin and the youngest, Saburo, the father of the man who helps lead Ikeda Bros. today, Tom Ikeda, along with his cousins Vard, Stan, and James.

Successful Cooperative
Juzo began farming in Oceano, CA, (near Santa Maria) in 1929. He farmed 35 acres of pole peas and other vegetables, joining the Pismo-Oceano Vegetable Exchange (POVE), a growers’ cooperative that had been formed two years before. Remarkably, the POVE is still thriving today, notes Tom Ikeda. “The POVE gave us selling power, the certain level of volume we needed for success,” he says.

World War II would bring perhaps the stiffest challenge yet. Americans of Japanese descent were sent to relocation camps. The farms of many Japanese Americans did not survive the war, says Ikeda. “Many were afraid so they sold them for pennies on the dollar,” he says.

A Sporting Family
	PERHAPS nothing shows the irony of the Ikedas’ being labeled as un-American because of their Japanese ancestry than their experience in the relocation camps. The camps were set up to house Japanese-Americans during World War II. (Another irony is that family patriarch Juzo Ikeda’s three sons renounced their Japanese citizenship, which was automatically bestowed to the children of Japanese natives even if they were born outside of Japan, just two days prior to the bombing of Pearl Harbor.) What did the family members do to pass the time in the camp? Play baseball. That’s right, they were passionate about the sport known as “Our National Pastime.” In fact, two of the boys played college ball; Kazuo was the catcher and Seirin was the shortstop at Cal Poly just prior to the war. Tom’s dad, Saburo, the youngest of the three, didn’t get the chance to play college ball as he enrolled at the University of California-Berkeley in the fall of 1941, just prior to the war. Sports remain a huge part of the Ikedas’ lives. Today, though, it’s basketball, not baseball, that’s the game of choice. Tom and his cousins have all coached at various youth levels for 20-plus years. If he were still alive, Tom says his dad probably wouldn’t be too happy that his grandchildren have opted for basketball. But Tom understands, because basketball has more action. In fact, he’s happy about their choice because baseball season coincides with his busiest times as a grower. "Because it’s played in the winter, basketball’s much easier for me to coach,” he says. “Basketball is a lot more ag-friendly.”

But the Ikedas were fortunate in that they knew a local merchant by the name of Vard Loomis. At the request of Juzo, Loomis had become a youth baseball and basketball coach, and it was at his recommendation that Kazuo and Seirin attended Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and played varsity baseball. Despite the fact that Loomis’ youngest brother was in the Pacific during the war fighting the Japanese, he didn’t hold that against the Ikedas.

“Vard Loomis and his family watched over our farms so we had something to come back to after the war,” says Ikeda. “If it wasn’t for them, who knows what would have happened.” Today, Tom Ikeda has a cousin named Vard, the ultimate tribute.

Expanding, Diversifying
The three sons took over the farm after the war, buying up land and increasing the size of the farm to 250 acres, because now the farm had to support three families, says Ikeda. They farmed Chinese Napa cabbage, green beans, Brussels sprouts, and snow peas, which were then the dominant crop, but were phased out in the 1970s. Tom’s generation, which includes cousins Vard, Stan, and James, took over in the 1970s and 1980s. They doubled the acreage during the 1990s, as there were now a total of seven families involved.

Today, Ikeda Bros. farms a total of 650 acres with a diversified crop mix: celery, bell peppers, broccoli, red and green cabbage, Chinese Napa cabbage, spinach, cilantro, cut flowers, various types of lettuce, and, most recently, avocados. “We’re always trying to diversify,” Ikeda explains.

Ikeda Bros. is still a member of the POVE, which totals 2000 acres among its five grower-members. The POVE has land in many of the communities along California’s Central Coast, including Arroyo Grande, Nipomo, Morro Bay, and the Los Osos Valley. The children of the current generation are just starting to come of age, graduating from college. Ikeda says they are encouraging the next generation to work outside the business, then hopefully come back and take over. “We want them to bring in new ideas because we don’t want them to just be high-priced tractor drivers,” he says. “But they’ve got to want to come back and be passionate about it; they need to be passionate about whatever they do.”

Kind of like their great-grandfather, that 17-year-old who set out on his own, a pioneer in a new land a little more than a century ago.

Direct comments or questions about this article to deddy@meistermedia.com