For practically 100 years Koda Farms grew among the most beloved rice within the nation in situations removed from ultimate.
Its rice was a finicky crop that sprouts sluggish, skinny and tall, with fewer grains per bunch, and heads that may sag under the attain of the thresher and find yourself within the mud.
Its land lies greater than 100 miles south of the Sacramento Valley, the place 97% of the state’s rice crop is grown. Its soil is a clay-heavy combination that doesn’t take up water nicely, creating environmental challenges that prompted the farm’s founder, Keisaburo Koda, to pioneer a planting course of through which the fields are flooded earlier than the seeds are scattered by low-flying planes.
Sho-Chiku-Bai candy rice is sifted by the palms of Robin Koda from a small seed silo on the Koda household farm.
However the land’s limitations are their birthright, mentioned Robin Koda, Keisaburo’s granddaughter, a legacy of struggles overcome. They nonetheless work the 1,000 acres that have been all that was left of Keisaburo’s belongings after he and his household returned from an incarceration camp after World Warfare II. They reside in a home simply down the road from the rice mill he used to personal, inside eyeshot of the properties that have been taken from them and by no means given again.
Koda Farms, which is winding down operations this yr and licensing its emblems to a different family-run firm, exists in no small half due to her grandfather’s optimism about America, Robin mentioned. It continued due to the household’s willingness to simply accept thorns to develop roses — or on this case, to develop rice, flippantly candy with a pearlescent sheen and a supple chewy texture.
“My grandfather, irrespective of how trod-upon or ill-treated, by no means misplaced his enthusiasm for America,” Robin mentioned.
Robin Koda is proven on the household farm she’s co-owned and managed together with her brother as they transition manufacturing to their trademark licensee after being in enterprise for practically a century in South Dos Palos. Her grandfather turned referred to as “the Rice King.”
Keisaburo was born in Fukushima prefecture in 1882 to a household of samurai turned rice farmers. He labored as a faculty principal earlier than immigrating to California in 1908. He was impressed by the ebook “Kings of Fortune,” which detailed the achievements of American businessmen reminiscent of Cornelius Vanderbilt and Eli Whitney. The preface made the next declare about the USA:
“Neither class distinctions nor social prejudices, neither variations of start, faith, nor concepts, can forestall the person of true advantage from profitable the simply reward of his labors on this favored land.”
Keisaburo sought success with the single-minded depth of a second son excluded from the household enterprise and compelled to make his personal approach on this planet. Upon arrival he launched a tuna fish cannery, bought canned produce, opened a series of laundries within the Coalinga space, and even spent a while wildcatting for oil. He discovered his greatest success in rice, beginning a farm along with his sons Invoice and Ed north of Sacramento. It turned so profitable that the Japanese neighborhood again then referred to as him “the Rice King.”
Keisaburo knew Californians resented the monetary success of early Asian immigrants. He gave his companies innocuous names reminiscent of State Farming Co., North America Tuna Canning, and Golden West Canning to keep away from racism and xenophobia. It’s additionally why his youngsters have biblical names.
Robin Koda, left, is together with her 99-year-old mom, Tama, who was the revolutionary thoughts that helped develop the household farm.
However it was all taken, a method or one other, after Keisaburo and his household have been compelled right into a Colorado incarceration camp by the U.S. authorities throughout World Warfare II. When he got here again, the one piece of his empire left was the 1,000 acres the place Koda Farms stands right this moment.
Two generations later, it’s exhausting to know precisely why Keisaburo rebuilt his life so near the reminders of all that was taken from his household. However what’s evident is that Keisaburo prized his American identification and ultimately turned a naturalized citizen. He helped create banks, alternate applications and different establishments to assist Japanese People rebuild their lives after battle and incarceration.
He misplaced his belongings however not his vitality. After the battle, he was recognized to drive across the state with a stress cooker at the back of his sedan so he might exhibit the deserves of brown rice on demand. He pursued the return of his stolen belongings in courtroom till the day he died in 1964. A yr after his demise, the USA authorities settled the household’s case for simply $100,000.
Robin and Ross, her brother, imagine their grandfather’s determination was extra pragmatic than defiant. His land was all of the household had left.
“It didn’t actually matter the place you went. There was at all times going to be postwar prejudice,” Robin mentioned.
Small seed silos are proven on the Koda household farm in South Dos Palos.
Koda Farms lies within the city of South Dos Palos, a rural outpost of fewer than 2,000 individuals. There is no such thing as a mail supply right here, and sheriff’s deputies may take 45 minutes to indicate as much as a name. A couple of years in the past, Robin needed to personally chase a house intruder out of her entrance door. She remembers emptying the clip of her handgun into the evening sky and screaming on the high of her lungs. “You understand, so that they know a loopy woman lives right here,” she defined.
They have been the one Asian household on the town when her grandfather moved in a century in the past, and the 2020 census places the city’s Asian inhabitants at 12. It’s a conservative, football-loving city the place lots of people grew up looking. The corporate’s places of work sport a big assortment of mounted deer heads, lots of them shot by Keisaburo. Luggage of rice and barley from previous high quality inspections act as paperweights for stacks of recordsdata and manuals.
When Ross and Robin rejoined the enterprise full-time in 1998, Koda Farms was an ageing operation at a time of fast modernization. Ross, the one son, confronted the inconceivable activity of matching the legacy left by his grandfather, who dominated California’s rice commerce in his day.
Robin Koda is with Gary Wallace, who’s been with the corporate for practically 60 years on the household farm.
Koda was giant sufficient to have the prices of an enormous farm however too small to shrug off drastic fluctuations within the worth and availability of water and pure gasoline. The household competed with farms many occasions their dimension, operations that grew higher-yield crops in a extra ultimate local weather. Massive Japanese meals distributors started to advertise their very own personal label rice over that of Koda Farms. New rules for meals dealing with introduced costly tools upgrades. Computerized stock administration meant grocery shops measure the success of a given product by turnover quantity.
However Koda Farms has shipped its flour product, Mochiko Blue Star Rice Flour, in a wholesale package deal of 36 packing containers for the reason that Nineteen Forties, which naturally takes longer to show over. And the field, additionally unchanged for the reason that starting, contains a punch-out spout that may trigger a little bit of a large number. In my pantry, my very own field is sealed with tape.
It’s no shock that each siblings took a while away from the enterprise. Ross left the farm for just a few years and labored in finance in Chicago. Robin turned an artist who confirmed her work in galleries and lived in France and Los Angeles. However ultimately, the decision of blood and soil was too sturdy.
As their ancestors had earlier than them, they set about making one of the best out of a tricky scenario. In an age through which water effectivity had turn out to be an asset, their clay-heavy soil helped them preserve water. Ross oversaw a shift to natural farming strategies. Robin’s ambassadorship of Koda Farms rice helped place it on advantageous eating menus throughout California and the nation.
However the financial and environmental realities of farming in California ultimately made it too difficult to proceed, Ross mentioned. Licensing their rice trademark to Western Meals was a troublesome determination, nevertheless it means the crop will proceed to be grown to the household’s specs and keep on grocery retailer cabinets, Robin mentioned. Western Meals Chief Govt Miguel Reyna, a Central Valley native whose dad and mom have been farm laborers, has labored with the household for practically a decade.
“That’s how we are able to sleep at evening, as a result of we maintain all of the specs that we produce to,” Robin mentioned.
The household owns the emblems in no small half due to Tama Koda, their mom, who persuaded the household to formalize their trademark licensing of Kokuho Rose and inspired them to inform their story.
One among their early licensees was the Nomura Co., which unfold their rice, Kokuho Rose, to Asian supermarkets everywhere in the U.S.
Kokuho means “nationwide treasure,” in Japanese. The rice’s crimson brand — an eight-sided mirror with a heavenly sword — regarded acquainted to me, so I texted an image of the bag to my mother in Fremont.
It seems I’ve been consuming all of it my life. It’s the rice we used once I was rising up in Tennessee, bought on the small Asian grocer on the farmer’s market in Nashville.
I has assumed it was an imported product like every part else in that retailer. However it was an American rice, created by an American household.
Robin Koda leaves a warehouse on the household farm. The financial and environmental realities of farming in California ultimately made it too difficult to proceed, her brother Ross mentioned.
