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Published Aug 2009
256 pages
Genre: History, Current Affairs and Religion
Publication Information
It was when David Mas Masumoto's father had a stroke on the sprawling fields of their farm that the son looked with new eyes on the land where he and generations of his family have toiled for decades. Masumoto - an organic farmer working the land in California's Central Valley - farms stories as he farms peaches. In Wisdom of the Last Farmer, an impassioned memoir of revitalization and redemption, he finds the natural connections between generation and succession, fathers and children, booms and declines as he tells the story of his family and their farm. He brings us to the rich earth of America's Fruit Basket, under the vine trellises and canes where grapes are grown, and to the fruit orchards flush with green before harvest, where he uncovers and preserves the age-old wisdom that is fast disappearing in our modern, information-driven world - and that is urgently needed in this time of food crises and social disruption.
Masumoto sees the price the family has paid to grow complex heirloom peaches - when the market rewards tasteless, big, and red fruits -- and the challenges of maintaining traditions and integrity while working in the modern, high-pressure agricultural marketplace. As his father's health declines along with the profitability of the family farm, Masumoto has the further hard work of nursing his father back to health - becoming master to the teacher who once schooled him - and is driven beyond economic concerns to even larger questions of life, death, and renewal.
"Masumoto's style is often short, choppy, and in the present tense: 'I want to quit...I stagger home, take a long drink...I turn, trudge up the steps...I rest. I can hear myself breathing...I can feel my heart slowing.' This makes for tedious reading indeed." - Library Journal
"A graceful meditation on the work of growing food and its meaning across generations...a peach of a book, and with a recipe for raisins in the bargain" - Kirkus Reviews
"An eloquent and moving memoir...a coming-of-age story for adults as well as a generous appreciation of the personal value of farming to farmers and its overall value to society. Masumoto's love for his family, their land, and the fruit they produce shines through every chapter." - Marion Nestle, Ph.D., author of What to Eat
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