Our visit to Tanaka Farms this weekend left us with results that we were not expecting. The original theme we were shooting for for this project was the push for "green"-ness and how people might be making a shift to locally grown foods. This was not the case at Tanaka Farms. What we found there was young families with small children having fun in the sun running around and picking pumpkins for halloween. We were the only people on the premises who weren't escorting a small child.
We were able to question a few people while they were pumpkin hunting and our "in" was typically freeing their hands and taking a picture of the whole family. We asked questions like "how often do you come to Tanaka Farms?", "Would you have come here without your child?", or "Do you shop at farmer's markets?". It seemed that most people answered that they were there simply for photo opportunities of their children in the act of pumpkin picking, and they didn't necessarily shop at farmer's markets and typically only come once a season if not just once a year.
3 comments:
Those are some fascinating preliminary findings. Why are these parents so much wanting their child to be photographed in this "natural" setting? It is definitely looking more and more like agri-Tourism.
Jessica
Very true. We got some very interesting feedback from one of the families I baby sit for that was also visiting Tanaka on Sunday. First of all, they had been once before (to the Irvine location) during strawberry season, and found it to be much more enjoyable. During strawberry season they thought it was a more "educational" (edu-tainment?) experience. In fact, the girls (they are 2 1/2 year-old-triplets) were excited to be at Tanaka Farms again because they wanted to "eat carrots and vegetables." They also found strawberry season to be more relaxing and less crowded.
In addition, although the family drove down from Los Alamitos with the kids (and grandma too!) they did not purchase any large pumpkins for carving. They were there for the "experience" (each of the girls picked out a smaller "trickster" pumpkin), but informed us they would be buying their larger pumpkins at the Costo across the street from their home, because they are less expensive.
Wow, that's some good stuff. I don't know what it all means..but I can totally understand that viewpoint of wanting to expose their kids to the farm as educational. Yet not truly participating in it by actually purchasing one of their pumpkins, surprises me. But the more "enjoyable" strawberry season also sounds like that "tourism" you are talking about. It really seems like the convergence of so many concepts and viewpoints at Tanaka. "Something for everyone", maybe?
Jessica
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