The Enduring Legacy of Bob Sakata and the Sakata Education Campus
The story of Bob Sakata and Sakata Farms is a testament to resilience, adaptation, and the enduring power of the human spirit. It is a story deeply intertwined with the history of Japanese Americans in Colorado, a history marked by both adversity and triumph. From facing discrimination and displacement during World War II to building a thriving agricultural empire, the Sakata family's journey reflects the broader experience of Japanese Americans who chose to make Colorado their home. There is a chance that the plants you brought home from the garden center, or even the melons you bought from a Colorado farmer’s market, were grown by a generations-old farm owned by a Japanese American family.
Japanese Americans in Colorado: A History of Resilience
While much attention has been given to the challenges faced by Japanese Americans during World War II, their presence in Colorado predates the war and extends far beyond it. Even inside Camp Amache, Japanese Americans grew food and ornamental plants. Not to mention after the war, more than 11,000 Japanese Americans chose to make Colorado their new home, and not all of them came to Denver. In fact, more than half spread out over Colorado’s rural areas, with many turning to farming and flower growing to support their families, eventually building multigenerational businesses.
The presence of Japanese farmers in Colorado predates World War II, and goes back even before the turn of the 20th century. It was 1916 when Unosuke Kiyota and his wife, Tomi, moved to unincorporated Weld County. Unosuke worked as a laborer for other farmers until finally purchasing his own land in Fort Lupton in 1931. At that time, many other states had what were called “alien land laws,” which specifically prohibited Asians from land ownership, however, Colorado was not one of those states.
During World War II, southeast Colorado was the site of Camp Amache, an incarceration camp that held Japanese American families on the unfounded suspicion they were spies for the Japanese government. TOP: Replicas of a guard tower and barracks at the Amache War Relocation Center near Granada. The internment camp held more than 7,500 people of Japanese descent, including many American citizens, between 1942 and 1945. BOTTOM LEFT: Barbed wire is wrapped around a stanchion supporting a guard tower. military. TOP: Replicas of a guard tower and barracks at the Amache War Relocation Center near Granada. The internment camp held more than 7,500 people of Japanese descent, including many American citizens, between 1942 and 1945. MIDDLE: Barbed wire is wrapped around a stanchion supporting a guard tower. military. Families from California, Oregon and Washington state were relocated to camps like this across Western states, often in remote areas with punishing, unfamiliar weather.
Colorado gained a reputation as a sort of “safe state,” thanks to then-governor Ralph Carr, who was a vocal opponent of Japanese internment, despite the fact that Colorado was home to a camp of its own. He invited Japanese families to come to Colorado, a move that arguably lost him his next election.
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After leaving the camps, Asakawa said many Japanese American families set down roots in Colorado and got into the flower and nursery business, like the Tagawa family that runs Tagawa Gardens in Centennial and Tagawa Greenhouse in Brighton. Though today, fruit and vegetable farms owned by Japanese American families are rare.
Bob Sakata: From Internment Camp to Agricultural Icon
Bob Sakata's personal story is a remarkable example of overcoming adversity and achieving success. Born in California, as a teenager, Sakata and his family were imprisoned in the Topaz Internment Camp in central Utah.
When Sakata first arrived by himself in Brighton in 1942, the 16-year-old knew nothing about Colorado. He only knew the Centennial State offered one of the few havens for the Japanese in the West. Sakata had heard Colorado Gov. Ralph Carr’s rare speech openly defending the rights of the Japanese community: “Remember that America is a great melting pot of the modern civilized world. “He openly stated that what the government was doing was unconstitutional, and he invited any Japanese American from the West Coast who wanted to voluntarily come to Colorado,” Sakata said.
Back in Topaz, Utah, where Sakata had spent the past six months, the teen’s father, brother and twin sisters remained detained in an internment camp with other Japanese and Japanese Americans who were forcefully removed from their homes on the West Coast. Like so many other American families, the Sakatas saw their lives drastically set off course by the Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbor. From one day to the next, the Sakatas were no longer a family of humble farmers working the land in California.
“When I went into the camp in Topaz, Utah, I felt I could not mentally be able to stand it in there. I believed so much in this United States and its constitution and when I saw them standing with their guns pointing inside, I knew that was wrong. Sakata did not dwell on the story or offer greater detail on his time in Utah. He instead removed a slip of paper from his wallet. Its faded ink and tattered edges hint that Sakata turns to this note often: “Whenever there’s a big challenge that God gives us, I pray and say, ‘Don’t let me go into failure because of these disasters but help me use these challenges as a stepping stone to a brighter future.
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After disruption of the family’s life in 1942, the farming tradition could have easily been lost to circumstance. “I came here and worked for a farmer, Mr. Bill Schluter. I did chores for him and went to school and graduated from Brighton High School in 1943. I lived in the little milk house,” Sakata said. “I came here with a lot of reservations wondering how I would be accepted in Brighton High School when they all knew that I just came out of a concentration camp.
In 1944, while Schluter’s fellow farmers in Brighton were lobbying for a ballot measure that would have banned Japanese land ownership, he extended the Sakatas a helping hand. By 1945, when the Japanese internment camps were shut down, Sakata had made an impact on Schluter. The farmer took interest in the family’s future now that they were free. “Mr. Schluter is the one who asked me what I wanted to do with the family. I called my late brother Harry and he said he didn’t want to go back to California and I didn’t want to go back either,” Sakata said. “I told him there was an opportunity here, so the whole family came to Brighton after Mr.
Bob Sakata was 20 years old when he began farming 40 humble acres on the outskirts of Brighton. Over the next 50 years, Bob Sakata would grow his farm to a peak of 3,000 acres, becoming a well-known onion and sweet corn supplier for Front Range supermarkets. Sixty-six years later, Sakata Farms covers 3,000 acres and is one of the 100 largest vegetable producers in the country. Sakata still works his fields of broccoli, sweet corn and onions with his son, Robert, and other family members.
Sakata Farms: A Legacy of Innovation and Community Service
Sakata Farms' success is not only a testament to Bob Sakata's hard work and determination but also to his commitment to innovation and community service.
He was a part of numerous farm organizations, even founding his own in 1955 called the Brighton Agricultural Institute. But community service was particularly important to Bob Sakata. In 1959, he helped to raise funds to build Platte Valley Medical Center, the area’s first hospital, and he continued to support the facility all his life, on top of participating in local school boards and church organizations. Bob and his wife, Joanna, are in the Colorado Business Hall of Fame and the Colorado Agriculture Hall of Fame.
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“One reason we were able to move ahead is that I never had to worry about the office. When asked to describe the Sakatas, former Colorado Commissioner of Agriculture Don Ament shared glowing words about the entire family. “Everything he does is special,” Ament said. “(He’s) hard working, motivated, always trying to listen and do things smarter. (He’s) humble. That’s why everyone likes to have him around. “Bob is great to be around. Bob’s got a very magnetic personality and he commands a lot of respect. People not only in ag but his whole community do listen. They know what he does and what he stands for. When asked what he believes brought him success as a farmer, Sakata said, “I just had faith in America as a free nation, I truly believed that if you worked harder, you obeyed the laws and you thought smarter, you could get ahead.
Adapting to Changing Times: Challenges and Transformations
Like many family farms, Sakata Farms has faced its share of challenges, including rising labor costs, increasing real estate values, and the uncertainty of commodities markets.
The real estate boom in recent years also means that the actual size of the farm itself has shrunk by as much as half. Rob said a large share of the land they used to farm on was rented, and as the value of that land (and associated water rights) started to soar, those landlords opted to cash out and sell.
Labor costs have dramatically increased for farmers in recent years, and so, Rob and his father began gradually phasing out vegetable production in favor of growing feed crops to supply local dairy farms. The pivot has allowed Sakata Farms to outlive its namesake, even as many others leave farming altogether. “That was a tough one for me because I felt like I was tearing down the legacy that he had built,” Rob said. But his father, ever practical, saw the writing on the wall himself: the cost of labor had drastically increased in recent years. Vegetable farms typically bring in seasonal laborers who move from state to state, following planting and harvest seasons.
Sakata remembers the drought of 1954- which, he says, exceeded the dire conditions of the early 2000s-as the first of many trials to his operations. He turned to groundwater to supplement variable water supplies during subsequent times. But in the 2000s, new restrictions limited well pumping in much of the South Platte Basin because of suspected depletion of the underground aquifer and related legal complications. Add in capricious environmental episodes- hailstorms, pests, ravenous bird flocks-that can decimate crops, then account for the uncertainty of commodities markets, and it’s little wonder that farmers are tempted to sell their water rights to municipal suitors. “I think we’re the only business in the whole United States where there is no guarantee of what kind of price we’ll get for our product,” Sakata says. “We have such a small margin of profit [that] we have to cut everywhere we can.”
The Future of Sakata Farms: An Uncertain Horizon
At 66, Rob has no children of his own and no other direct relatives who are even thinking about taking over the farm. Family farmers all over the country find themselves in this exact predicament. “I’ve talked to other people that do have multiple children interested in coming back and they’re just questioning that decision going ‘oh my gosh, do they know what they’re in for? Can our operation support their families?’” Rob said. But it does mean that the future of Sakata Farms is a bit uncertain.
Agriculture in Colorado: A Vital Industry Facing Challenges
Sakata Farms' story is also reflective of the broader agricultural landscape in Colorado, an industry that plays a vital role in the state's economy and character.
Many other farmers have also seized the opportunity, joining Sakata in the surrounding area of the South Platte River Basin, which begins in the Rocky Mountains and fans outward to envelop the city of Denver and the expansive plains to the east. In the postwar era, this northeastern part of the state has boomed with fields of sugar beets, corn, potatoes and barley. Snowmelt flowing from the mountains is diverted and stored to irrigate fields that otherwise would not flourish in the arid climate. The vast groundwater aquifer has also been tapped extensively through wells, additionally buffering water supplies. This unlikely oasis, in fact, spreads across the state, well beyond the vegetable farms and sugar beet fields of the South Platte Basin to the fruit orchards and sweet corn fields on the other side of the Rockies, as well as the pastures and cattle of the northwest, the potato farms in the south, and the melon patches in the southeast. These working farmlands produce a bounty that feeds millions in Colorado and around the world. They also play a vital role in providing open space and wildlife habitat, which, along with agriculture itself, defines much of Colorado’s character.
According to the state Department of Agriculture, farms, ranches and the food industry generate $20 billion of annual economic activity, making agriculture second only to mining and energy development in terms of its economic importance to Colorado. Agribusiness supports more than 100,000 local jobs.
Since the 1970s, burgeoning cities in Colorado have bolstered their water supplies by buying up irrigators’ water rights and, in the process, drying up farmland. Even taking into account the potential for conservation and new water storage projects, many planners have presumed that the bulk of new urban water will need to come from transfers of water now owned by farmers and ranchers, says James Pritchett, an agricultural economist at Colorado State University. “The biggest challenge we face is making sure we understand that water needs to stay on the land to produce agricultural products,” says John Salazar, commissioner of the Colorado Department of Agriculture.
The Importance of Local Food Systems and Sustainable Practices
In recent years, there has been a growing movement towards local food systems and sustainable agricultural practices, reflecting a desire to connect with the source of our food and support local farmers.
Bailey Stenson and her husband Dennis began Happy Heart Farm near Fort Collins 28 years ago. From the start, the Stensons have used biodynamic farming practices, a method of organic agriculture that applies compost and manures in place of chemical fertilizers and pesticides and views a farm as a unified “organism.” After their first seven years, the Stensons pioneered community-supported agriculture (CSA) in the state, selling individuals and families seasonal shares of their crop. The growth of CSAs has accompanied the expansion of farmers’ markets and grocers oriented toward natural and organic foods. Consumers are “waking up to the fact” that buying local and organic foods is healthy for their families and beneficial to their communities and their neighboring farmers, says Stenson. “More and more people are really wanting to connect with the people growing food.” According to a 2011 survey conducted by Colorado Proud, nearly 92 percent of Colorado residents would buy more locallygrown agricultural products if they were available and identified as such.
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