Canada: Komoto recognized as Agriculturist of the Year

Bob Komoto, who has been named the Ontario Chamber of Commerce Agriculturist of the Year, is the second generation of his family to be in the onion packing business and the second generation to be so honored by the chamber. The Ontario Chamber of Commerce honored his father, Joe Komoto, several years ago, also as Agriculturist of the Year. Although raised around the onion business, Bob Komoto took a totally different career path before returning to join the Ontario company his father helped found and which Komoto continues to manage. Komoto, Ontario Produce, was born in 1948 and was raised in Ontario. His father and the Nagaki brothers started Ontario Produce in 1953. “They were 50-50 partners,” Komoto said, adding there had been another company at the Ontario Produce location, 44 S.E. Ninth Ave. His father started as a foreman and bought out the company one or two years later. “It was a packing business,” Komoto said, adding it handled potatoes and onions. The company stopped packing potatoes in about the mid-1970s.

Fresh packing of potatoes in Malheur County ended as growers chose to raise potatoes for Ore-Ida Foods, now Heinz Frozen Foods, and in the face of competition from other potato growing areas, Komoto said. “Eastern Idaho farmers got huge (in acreage),” he said. There was a little market for early potatoes that worked well for a while, but that eventually vanished, he said. “It goes to show you that business can disappear if you are not competitive.” In the late 1950s, Ontario Produce began farming south of Ontario, and that operation continued until after the 1998 season. “It was hard to finance both,” Komoto said. In one of last years of the farm, a hail storm went through that destroyed much of the crop. With those onions lost, Ontario Produce had to purchase onions from the outside to have enough of them to pack.

After graduating from high school, Komoto went to Oregon State University and went on to graduate school at Stanford University, where he eventually obtained a doctorate degree in chemistry. He went to work for Chevron as a researcher in San Francisco, where he met his wife, Janet, who also works in the office at Ontario Produce. They have one son, Jordan, who is married and lives in Michigan. After working at Chevron for about six or seven years, Komoto decided that there wasn’t recognition for research in the company unless it was going be a huge project and it made big money, he said. Chevron is a good company, he said, adding, “They just didn’t need me.” On a fishing trip with his father in eastern Idaho, Komoto asked if there was a position open at Ontario Produce. Komoto came into the company in 1981 and eventually bought into it.

Ontario Produce was sold to Rio Queen Citrus, a major producer and shipper of onions as well as tree-ripened citrus fruit in Texas, in 2005. Komoto offered to leave the company as manager but asked the rest of his staff be retained. Rio Queen Citrus officers said they wanted him to stay. Rio Queen Citrus also had owned Valley Packers in Adrian but bought Ontario Produce, which was a larger facility and had good railroad access, which the Adrian facility had lost, Komoto said. He negotiated the donation of the Valley Packers property to the Adrian School District. Today, the company ships out about 800,000 50-pound bags — about 1,000 truck loads — annually, he said.

Aside from the business, Komoto is a member of the Malheur Ag and Extension Coalition, which works to support the OSU Malheur Experiment Station and Extension program, and he is leading the effort to raise funds for the program and to establish a service district. He is also a member of the Japanese-American Citizens League, the Ontario Chamber of Commerce, the Idaho-Oregon Fruitland Vegetable Association and is one of five members of the advisory council for the Food Safety & Environmental Stewardship Program at Oregon State University. “It’s a good group,” Komoto said of the council. “It gets me to hear what is going on in the bigger environmental discussions.” Komoto says he still sees the positive attitude in the Ontario area that attracted his father when he moved here from the Willamette Valley.

Source: argusobserver.com