Cultivating connections
Once-struggling farm thrives by offering tours and tastes to visitors
Story by Ching Lee • Photos by Rob Andrew
On their one-year anniversary together, Alex Lee of Orange took his girlfriend, Angela Park of Rowland Heights, on a wagon ride to pick strawberries, pet farm animals and roam the fields of a working farm. Their trip to Tanaka Farms in Irvine was a departure from their typical date, which Lee described as usually hitting the mall and getting something to eat. Friends who have been to the diversified fruit and vegetable farm, he said, consider it “the go-to place” for farm tours and for “getting to do something hands-on.” “I thought it would be fun for me and my girlfriend,” Lee said of the outing. “We really enjoy outdoor stuff. I just thought it would be a cool, unique experience.” Being his first time on a farm, Lee said learning about some of Tanaka Farms’ history and the crops it grows “gave me a good perspective of how much work goes into everything.” “With how modern everything has become, it’s easy to overlook something like where our food comes from,” Lee said. An urban oasis Considering the secluded feel of Tanaka Farms—next to golf courses, nature trails and open fields—it could be easy to forget the property sits within Orange County’s dense metropolis, which has swallowed most of the region’s agricultural landscape through the years. Trying to eke out a living on a small family farm against increasing urban pressures and changing market dynamics has not exactly been a walk in the park for the Tanakas. Until they found their niche opening their farm to the public, third- generation farmer Glenn Tanaka said he did not want his son, Kenny, to follow in his footsteps. “When my son was growing up, times were so tough,” he said. “My wife and I had sleepless nights and wondered how we were going to pay the bills. Without the agritourism, we wouldn’t survive.” After two bad crop years in a row during the mid- to late 1980s, Tanaka said he couldn’t get an operating loan from the bank, forcing him to downsize and sell whatever assets he had. They struggled through the 1990s and early 2000s.
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