Masumoto Family Farm

David Mas Masumoto is an organic peach and grape farmer and the author of Letters to the Valley, A Harvest of Memories, published by Heyday Books, 2004. His previous books include Four Seasons in Five Senses, Things Worth Savoring (2003, W.W. Norton), Harvest Son, Planting Roots in American Soil (1998, W.W. Norton) and Epitaph For A Peach: Four Seasons on My Family Farm (1995, HarperCollins).

A third generation farmer, Masumoto (52) grows certified organic peaches, nectarines, grapes and raisins. He works with his family on their organic 80 acre farm south of Fresno, California and also helps care for his parents who still live on the family farm.

Masumoto is currently a columnist for and The Fresno Bee has written for USA Today and The Los Angeles Times. His other books include Silent Strength (1984), Home Bound (1989) and Country Voices, The Oral History of a Japanese American Family Farm Community (1987). He received the James Clavell Japanese American National Literacy Award in 1986.

Epitaph for a Peach won the 1995 Julia Child Cookbook Award in the Literary Food Writing category and was a finalist for the 1996 James Beard Foundation Food Writing Award. It was also received the San Francisco Review of Books Critics' Choice Award 1995-96. A German translation edition of Epitaph for a Peach was published in 1997.

Harvest Son won a Commonwealth Club of California silver medal for the California Book Awards in 1999 and was a finalist for the Asian American Writers' Workshop award in New York.

In 2002, Masumoto was appointed to the James Irvine Foundation Board of Directors. He also serves on the board of the Campaign for College Opportunity. Previously, he was appointed to the California Council for the Humanities board in 1994 and served as Co-Chair from 1998 to 2001. He wrote, designed and curated the museum exhibition, 'Country Voices, Three Generations of Family Farmers' which appeared at the Fresno Metropolitan Museum (1992) and the Japanese American National Museum (1993) in Los Angeles.

He has a bachelors degree in sociology from U.C. Berkeley and a masters degree in community development from U.C. Davis and attended International University in Tokyo, Japan.

Masumoto has been the key note speaker at many diverse conferences including International Association of Culinary Professionals, Culinary Institute of America, American Association of Museums, American Institute of Wine and Food, Dance USA, Ag. in the Classroom National Conference, Chamber Music Society of America, Calif. Teachers of English and Japanese American National Museum. He also was awarded a Breadloaf Writers Conference fellowship in 1996. He has also visited numerous schools delivering presentations and teaching in classes and was a writer in residence at Iolani School in Honolulu, Hawaii in 2004.

Feature articles about Masumoto have appeared in Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Time Magazine and New York Times. His farm has been featured Sunset, Country Living and Glamour Magazines and on television as part of the California Heartland PBS series as well as the nationally aired program 'Ripe for Change.'

Masumoto won the University of California, Davis Award of Distinction� from the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences in 2003. He was a founding member of California Association of Family Farmers. He has served on the California Tree Fruit Agreement research board and has been a member of the Raisin Advisory Committee research board.

Masumoto and his wife, Marcy Masumoto, EdD., (50), have two children, Nikiko (20) and Korio (14). They reside in an 90 year old farmhouse surrounded by their vineyards and orchards just outside of Del Rey, California which is 20 miles south of Fresno.