“From Cows to Concrete”: A history of farming in the South Bay
Judith Gerber, the co-author of “From Cows to Concrete”, also teaches people how to grow their own salads in Torrance’s Community Gardening Program. Photo When I met Judith Gerber at the café at Nordstrom’s, she glanced at the stylish fashions with curiosity. “This isn’t the kind of place I usually shop,” she confessed. “I’m a farm girl.” That might seem like an odd statement from a Torrance native, but as Judith documented in the book “From Cows To Concrete” that she coauthored with Rachel Surls, local farming was once a big business here. This isn’t something Gerber learned from prowling through old records, but something she vividly remembers. Picking strawberries at Ishibashi Farm in 1961. Photograph courtesy Judith Gerber “I grew up in the South Bay and I remember going to Meadow Park dairy, I remember going to Ishibashi Farm by Torrance Airport until it closed in 2012,” Gerber said. “Torrance had farm animals until 1965, when the city passed an ordinance outlawing them. Most people have heard about the rancho days in California, but don’t realize that farming and ranching went on a long time after that. That lifestyle vanished not long ago, but until I started documenting it…
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