Preserving a legacy of love, labor, and passion: Koda Farms passes the torch to the next generation

If you keep up to date with JA news, I’m guessing you’ve heard of the mass hysteria surrounding the closure of Koda Farms. If not, let me catch you up to speed:

In August 2024, Koda Farms announced that it would be shutting down and handing its licensing over to Western Farms. Immediately the news became a focal point of the JA community and spread even further beyond that, with well known news publications such as the New York Times and Los Angeles Times writing articles about the impending doom Koda Farms supposedly faced.

I heard about this news weeks before I even started researching for and writing this article. My mom and I were eating lunch, and mid bite, her fork fell to her plate and a single tear fell from her eyes as she shared with me that Koda Farms was shutting down forever, which meant that our favorite Bluestar Mochiko would be gone, never to return. It felt like one of those major JA moments, like someone was gonna ask me in ten years, “Where were you when you heard the news about Koda Farms?” and I would have to give the incredibly lame answer of “I was eating lunch at 3PM on a Thursday in the form of cut up hotdogs and day old rice.”

Okay, that’s not actually what happened. However, with the way the JA community reacted and the way giant news networks painted the situation, it felt like that was how we should have reacted to the news. The news about Koda Farms was everywhere, and I saw people worldwide across dozens of social media platforms mourning the tragic loss of Koda Farms and its signature Bluestar Mochiko and Kokuho rice.

Let me make one thing clear: Koda Farms is not “dead.” There is no need to mourn the farm or start fundraising to keep its doors open—that is exactly the opposite of what Robin and Ross Koda, the current owners of Koda Farms, want. In reality, Robin and Ross are incredibly excited for this new chapter in Koda Farms story.

Their farm was started by their grandfather, Keisaburo Koda, who immigrated from Japan in hopes of finding his own fortune. Although he started off taking on risky business ventures in the forms of oil and laundry, he eventually established a tuna canning company and then a vegetable processing company. Once sold, he invested in a new venture to farm rice, bringing techniques from Japan that were not commonly used in the US. That farm became known as the Koda Farms we all know and love today.

However, being a small farming business just isn’t as easy as it was when the farm started almost an entire century ago. When Keisaburo first started farming, it was like the wild west. There were no farming rules or regulations that individuals working in the agricultural industry needed to follow. Nowadays, farming is highly regulated. Robin and Ross have had to work through several farm inspections, go through certification trainings, and pay extra money to ensure that their farm is compliant with the government’s current farm standards.

In addition, the amount of land that Koda Farms owns is much smaller than it once was. Before World War II began, Keisaburo was working with up to 10,000 acres of land. However, after Executive Order 9066 forced all people of Japanese descent into concentration camps, Keisaburo was forced to hand ownership of his farm to strangers due to government mandates that the farm remain running. When they returned, almost everything was gone, and the Koda family was forced to rebuild from scratch. To this day, the farm still hasn’t been able to regain the 10,000 acres they once owned.

Another issue Koda Farms faces is employment. While they do have some younger employees, it’s difficult to find anyone from younger generations who are willing to help take over the management process. Currently, the youngest manager they have is in his early 60’s, and the oldest one has been working with them since the 1960’s.

For all those reasons and many more, Robin and Ross are not sad, but ecstatic about the licensing shift. Western Foods, the company that will take over the licensing and production of Koda Farms’ products, has its own rich history of labor and love. 

“Western is an American success story founded by the Kruse family and Miguel Reyna, who just happens to be a brilliant entrepreneur with an astute knack for business that is reminiscent of our grandfather,” Ross Koda had to say about the collaboration with Western Foods.

Miguel Reyna, the owner of Western Foods, is the son of immigrant farm workers. Robin and Ross Koda see him as a reflection of their own grandfather, who immigrated from Japan to start his farm in California in the 1920’s. 

To me, rice holds rich memories and history. Eating jasmine rice makes me think of going to Chinese restaurants with my grandparents on new year. Eating Japanese rice brings the flavors of homemade Japanese curry straight to my mouth. I’m sure that for Robin and Ross, rice holds much more powerful meanings. The rice they, their parents, and their grandparents have pioneered gives meaning and memories to a national community. We are brought together through our love of Kokuho rice and BlueStar mochiko, and our individual experiences with those grains breed rich flavors of love, loss, and kinship.

So respectfully, let’s please put down our candles and incense and stop mourning Koda Farms because they are certainly not dying. If anything, they are more alive than ever as Robin and Ross see the legacy their grandfather created burning bright in the hopes and dreams of Reyna and Western Foods. Reyna hopes to keep the products and legacy of Koda Farms alive as well as expand on their ideas in ways Robin and Ross have dreamed of, but did not have the time and resources to do so.

“There’s so much more to be thankful for, like the fact that our grandfather’s legacy is going to live on,” Robin said. “We are still celebrating the legacy of our grandparents by seeing them move forward to the next generation.”

As Koda Farms steps into this exciting new chapter of their life, let’s be grateful for the hard work and passion the Koda family displayed for decades. Let's do our best to offer support and kindness to Miguel Reyna and Western Foods as they move forward with their own new projects of devotion and perseverance. The products that Koda Farms has been making for generations will continue to be made by hands that know what it means to work hard. Just like the Koda family, I am positive that Western Foods understands the connections that rice breeds within our communities and hopes to use it as a way to connect a part of their own selves with us. This isn’t a funeral for Koda Farms; it’s the birth of something new!