Wisdom of the Last Farmer by David Mas Masumoto: book review

Wisdom of the Last Farmer: Harvesting Legacies from the Land (2009) is part of a series of books about the author's peach, nectarine and grape farm in Central Valley, California. Matsumoto is best known for his first autobiographical novel, Epitaph for a Peach: Four Seasons on my Family Farm (1995).

Masumoto tells of three generations of family farming, from the first time his grandparents arrived in America from Japan in 1899 when alien land laws prohibited non native-born Asians from owning land, to his father’s purchase of land in the 1950s, and to the author’s increasing responsibilities and ownership as he looks to past legacies and eventually leaving his own.

Farming is a hard life, and organic farming is even harder. Organic farming works in harmony with nature, using as many natural means of production as possible. Masumoto, in a simple easy graceful style, tells of the movement toward alternative and unproven farming methods as he strives for perfection. In this true tale of the second son’s determination to build a reputation, and to survive financially and physically on the land, he writes of the perennial dependence on external elements: weather, soil, mildew, weeds, pests, hired help, his family’s health, machinery, technology, the homogenization of food crops, the emergence of supermarkets,  the demand for quality, and the expectations of the buying majority: where quality is determined by colour and shape—the externals—rather than by flavour or nutritional content—the internals.

In telling of the hardships of the land, he tells of personal hardships through a father and son relationship. In 1997 his father has the first of a series of debilitating strokes. The account of his feelings as he watches the “signposts of success” as his father recovers some functions and memory and then the gradual deterioration of his father’s health with age, is poignant and honest.

The “last farmer” refers to the loss of farmers in an economically deteriorating industry, when in 1950 30% of farmers were over the age of fifty-five (the age of the author) and by 1990 60% of farmers were over 55. The next generation is fading from the farm. Farming requires resilience and patience, hard physical work, and institutional memory. It is built upon routine and tradition, but also experimentation and progress. It’s about timing – when to plant, when to harvest, when to rotate crop, when to reduce, when to expand, when to give in, and when to give up. It is about the “pain of surplus” but also the pleasure of memories, a productive harvest, a sense of place, a connectedness to the land and to the family, and to the preservation of legacies.

Wistful wisdom, patient story-telling, an acceptance of tradition and trading losses for gains, and a genuine tenderness for his father, family and organic fruits are the trademarks of this exceptionally fine book.