Laboring for Love of the Land

Before the sky shows its early-morning blush, Jimmy Otsuka is already crouched in the middle of his beloved strawberry fields, carefully tending to newly planted seedlings.

It will be dark before he’s done. Wedded to the rhythms of farm life, this third-generation Japanese American farmer still works the 5-acre patch in Santa Ana that his father bought in 1947.

Today, however, the short furrows of his field quickly end in asphalt. The farm is surrounded by fences and tract homes. Cars whiz by on busy Fairview Street, shattering the pastoral illusion.

Urbanization has swallowed up the orange groves and vegetable fields of Orange County, leaving only the odd slice of farmland sandwiched between business parks and subdivisions.

Otsuka is painfully aware that five decades of development and the sheer force of economics--pressures that make the land more valuable than what’s grown on it--may soon bring an end to the only life he’s known.

“I think I’m going to be the last generation,” he said, a tinge of melancholy crossing his broad, tanned face. “My whole life’s been farming, but it’s just getting too hard to survive. Honestly, I’d encourage my boy to do something else.”

Otsuka, 46, is one of the few remaining Japanese American growers in Southern California and one of an even smaller number who still own their land. Once, thousands of such families farmed the coastal region from Ventura County to San Diego County.

Their slow disappearance reflects the demise of family farms throughout the nation. But for Japanese Americans, an ethnic group that made its name in farming California, it’s a bittersweet close to an immigrant story that began more than a hundred years ago.

“It’s really the end of an era,” said agricultural economist Desmond Jolly, director of the University of California Small Farms Program.

“Back then, that’s what they [Japanese Americans] knew how to do and that’s where the opportunities were. My sense is that with the younger generations, other opportunities became available and they chose to enter fields like medicine or engineering. For the older people, if your kids aren’t interested in farming, then there’s no point in hanging on to the land.”

The handful who remain, working small pieces of land in otherwise suburbanized neighborhoods, juggle more than their parents ever did. They work on computers as well as tractors and struggle to hang on to a way of life that seems more of a relic than a viable career.

The loyalty that agriculture draws can be puzzling to those who aren’t part of it, said David Mas Masumoto, a third-generation farmer in the Central Valley and author of books chronicling his life on the land. While selling out means exchanging a hard life for easy money, farming carries with it a powerful tradition of different values.

“It’s so hard for the rest of the public to understand that--because, as a society, we’re so driven by economic definitions of success, status, and power,” he said. “But farmers work with the land, and we nurture things and watch them grow. It’s wonderfully humbling to work with nature.”

In choosing to follow his father’s and grandfather’s paths, Masumoto knew from the beginning that it would be a difficult life.

“It was going to be a struggle. You were never going to really make money, but there are other values just as important,” he said. “That’s the spirit I see that gives hope for the future. There’s going to be a percentage of people who make the choices I made.”

One Family Makes Landmark Decision

The recent death of farmer Hiroshi Fujishige highlighted the difficult choices that face the dwindling numbers of farming families today. Fujishige was patriarch of an Anaheim family that became known for holding out for 20 years against multimillion-dollar offers for their 56-acre strawberry farm near Disneyland.

The Walt Disney Co. had made offers over the years for the parcel, which it wanted for another theme park, but Fujishige steadfastly refused. Other developers also had eyed the land, now valued at up to $90 million, according to some real estate experts.

In recent years, though, the longtime farmer had indicated that he would consider selling the property. In August, his family announced it would sell most of the land to Disney, keeping only 3.5 acres and a produce stand along Harbor Boulevard. Fujishige had been a part of that business decision, say close friends of the family. He died in September at 76.

Community observers marvel that the Fujishiges held firm for so long. The pressure to sell is intense when land prices skyrocket beyond what farmers can make in a lifetime.

“Everyone respected Hiro,” said Bill Ito, 48, a third-generation strawberry farmer in Westminster.

“Farming was his life. He lived on that property and loved it. That was the reason he held on. I’m sure it wasn’t easy since farming hasn’t been great [economically]. For him to work so hard every day when he could have cashed in--I’m not sure how many people in his shoes could have done that.”

Ito’s own family held on to their 70 acres for as long as they could but eventually sold it all in the 1960s. Now he leases 200 acres for his strawberries from the Irvine Co.

“It was economics,” he said. “You couldn’t afford to buy new land, and you couldn’t afford to keep the land you had. I know a lot of families who just gave up.”

Ethnic Farmers Transformed State

The end of the road comes only after a very long journey. It was just before the turn of the century that Japanese by the thousands crossed the Pacific to labor in the fertile farm lands of the United States. From 1885 to 1924, 239,000 left for Hawaii and 196,000 more left for the U.S. mainland to work in plantations, ranches and farms, notes historian Masakazu Iwata in a book about Japanese American farmers.

Despite prejudice and legal discrimination that kept first-generation immigrants from owning land until 1952, it was the sweat and labor of ethnic farmers that transformed California, producing the fruits, vegetables, livestock and flowers that made the state an agricultural powerhouse.

Already known as hard workers, Japanese Americans quickly gained a reputation for being gifted in farming, landscaping and horticulture. They dominated specialty produce, and by 1910, 80% of those in strawberry farming--a high-profit, labor-intensive industry--in Los Angeles County were Japanese.

“There were a large number of second sons who weren’t going to inherit land at home,” said Masumoto. “So they came seeking a better life here.”

But the years surrounding World War II marked a turning point because many families lost the land they’d been farming after they were sent off to internment camps. Some chose not to return to farming. It was the beginning of the exodus from agriculture.

As racial discrimination eased, succeeding generations chose to go into other fields that weren’t possible for their parents. Educational opportunities gave many of them the chance to do well in professional careers.

Second-generation farmer Clarence Nishizu, 87, of Fullerton, spent much of his adult life in the fields of Orange County, growing chili peppers and celery. But he lost rights to his leased land when he and his family were interned during the war at Heart Mountain in Wyoming.

He gave farming another chance when he returned to California, buying a small property in Oceanside in 1949 with his brothers. But after his crops failed in 1958, he left agriculture for good, turning to real estate like many other Japanese Americans. With a college degree in hand, he got his broker’s license and never looked back.

“I was very lucky,” he said. “Farming was the only thing I knew how to do. But when I got a chance to try something else, I found I could do it well. When you farm, you know a little something about property.”

Nishizu made his money in real estate development, brokering land deals for fellow farmers.

Ironically, it was the real estate boom of the 1980s that ultimately pushed many families to sell their land. Those who wanted to continue farming took the money and bought or leased property elsewhere.

The vast majority of the three dozen or so local Japanese American families currently in the farming and nursery business in Orange County lease the plots they cultivate. The handful who are owners frequently receive purchase offers.

“Every time there’s a real estate upswing, I get people coming by to make me offers, and I have to say I’ve been tempted,” said Otsuka, the Santa Ana strawberry grower. At the height of the real estate boom in the 1980s, his property at Fairview Street and Civic Center Drive was drawing offers that exceeded his annual income as much as 20 times.

In general, agriculture in California has largely become a war of attrition. From 1982 to 1992, more than 5,000 farms statewide closed up or were sold, and 3.2 million acres in farmland was lost, according to the 1992 U.S. Census of Agriculture, the most recent figures available. By and large, the majority of those who quit were farmers who owned 49 acres or less.

Virtually all counties throughout Southern California have been steadily losing farm acreage. From 1982 to 1992, Los Angeles County, which along with Orange County had been the primary base for Japanese American farmers, saw farmland shrink 42%, from 317,757 acres to 183,569.

In Orange County, the numbers are just as dramatic. In 1982, 165,262 acres were being farmed. A decade later, only 37% of that--60,740 acres--was still in use. About a third of the 574 farmers in business during that period got out.

Long Hours and Many Regulations

In many ways, farming remains the grueling, all-consuming task it’s always been. Planting begins in early fall for strawberry farmers like Otsuka; during harvest season, which runs from January through June, it becomes a seven-day-a-week operation for him, with the help of 18 to 20 laborers.

Two to three times a week, Otsuka rolls out of bed at 1 a.m. and drives up with a new berry shipment to the produce market in Los Angeles. He tries to make it back to the farm by sunrise in time to get the crew started on their fieldwork.

The morning is spent setting up his sales with boutique farmers markets and gourmet grocery stores. As an independent farmer, Otsuka’s marketing and bookkeeping are done with the help of his wife, Diane.

Afternoons are reserved for the daily check of all his property, including acreage he leases in Orange.

“If there’s no emergencies and nothing goes wrong, I’ll be done by 3 or so. But there’s very few of those days,” he said. “It seems like there’s always one crisis or another every day.”

Regulations on everything from water to pesticides to labor are among the heaviest burdens. Paperwork eats up almost half of Otsuka’s work time. Automation is essential, with computers as necessary as tractors. The business of agriculture is no longer what it used to be in his father’s day, he said wistfully.

“He could do pretty much everything by himself,” Otsuka said. “All he had to worry about was the land. If all I had to do was farm the land, it would be easy. But I’m on a real small scale, so in order to survive, I do my own retail sales and marketing. I run the produce stand. That’s why my days are so hectic. I’m wearing too many hats.”

By the end of the day, when the light begins to fade from the sky, Otsuka is usually still in the office, catching up on paperwork. The minimum 12-hour workdays have taken their toll on his wife and his three kids--Amy, 14; Dean, 11, and 15-month-old Koby.

Diane Otsuka, 43, says the family hasn’t taken an extended vacation in several years because her husband feels uncomfortable leaving the farm for more than a couple of days at a time.

“Even after 17 years, I’m still not used to this life,” she said. “He loves what he’s doing. We’re fortunate about that. But it can be very difficult and sometimes very frustrating. He has to spend all his time and energy towards work. He comes home and he’s exhausted.”

Otsuka said he knows his long hours are draining on his family, but he makes a concerted effort to be there for his children. Amy plays volleyball and basketball; Dean plays baseball and basketball.

“They do sports and I catch all their games. No matter how busy I am, I make sure I make time for my kids,” he said.

But he concedes that balancing family and farming can be difficult at times: “If you don’t love it, you can’t do it because you’re surely not in this for the money.”