Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["TradingPostPaul" <tradingpost@riseup.net>]

David Mas Masumoto is an organic-peach-and-grape farmer and the author of
“Four Seasons in Five Senses” (W.W. Norton).

August 13, 2006
Eat, Memory: Family Heirloom
By DAVID MAS MASUMOTO
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/13/magazine/13food.html?ei=5090&en=3cf74a
c994700482&ex=1313121600&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=prin
t

One afternoon nine years ago, I drove into the barnyard on a tractor,
dragging a broken plow. I had been driving too fast, trying to keep pace
with the warm spring days and the ensuing assault of weeds, when I hooked a
vine. My dad was there, wandering around his tractor.

Our 80-acre organic farm in California was exploding with life. Peaches and
nectarines were blooming, and the grapevines were pushing forth pale green
buds with miniature bunches. In three months, if all went well, we’d
gorge ourselves on peaches. In six months, the bulbous grapes could be
dried into raisins.

But the weeds flourished, too. Innocent-looking for a day or two, they kept
growing, spreading thick over the landscape. Soon a tangled mass of fibers
would compete for water, nutrients and sunlight, stunting the development
of my crops, robbing fruits of the essentials they need to grow fat.

The physical work was breaking me. Organic farming is not simple. It’s
easy to want to be environmentally responsible, but it’s a damned hard
thing to achieve. You cannot replace tedious labor with technology or
equipment. If I miss a few worms, an outbreak could ensue. I can’t fix
things with a magic spray. It’s like catching a bad flu with no medicine
readily available.

We did most of the work ourselves. With our budget getting tighter and
tighter every year, our farm demanded more hard labor. Exhausted, I’d
often whisper to myself, “This farm is going to kill me.” So I had
asked my 76-year-old father to do some extra harrowing for me — to help
cultivate and plow under the weeds. For a moment, I thought I might catch
up.

My father shuffled around his tractor as the engine roared. He looked
perplexed. At first I thought he was trying to listen for something wrong
with the engine.

Dad was great at repairs. He had to be, since our family was poor. My
grandparents immigrated from Japan a hundred years ago with dreams of
owning a farm. Instead, they found racist Alien Land Laws that prevented
foreign-born “Orientals” from buying property. So they waited until
their American-born children could establish a farm. Then came World War II
and the relocation of all Japanese-Americans from the West Coast. Because
they looked like the enemy, our family spent four years behind barbed wire
in the Arizona desert. Then, with no other place to go, they wandered back
to Fresno, Calif. In 1948, Dad bought our farm.

My grandmother scolded him. “You don’t buy land in America,” she
said. “They will take it away. Big mistake.” Dad ignored her and helped
plant family roots.

Like most farms in the area, we started with grapes to be dried into
raisins, muscats for cheap wine, plums, peaches and nectarines. Eventually
we gravitated toward peaches and grapes. They worked well in our soil, and
we loved to eat them, especially the rejects that grew too soft.

Isolated and without capital, Dad quickly learned how to restore old
equipment, tackle farm work creatively and make the most of situations.
Accept, adapt, adopt. That’s how he and many Japanese-Americans survived.
I believe that’s why he and I worked well together when I came back from
college and started us at the bottom of the learning curve for organic
farming. How could we grow crops without herbicides, fungicides or
pesticides? We became partners, making mistakes together, learning how to
farm differently as a team. It was Dad who taught me the power of fixing
things.

He was a gentle, quiet father. I believe that he was happy when I took over
the farm, but he rarely expressed it. I sensed that it pained him to see me
work so hard. Organic farming challenged us: without chemicals, we had to
weed by hand and adapt our equipment; constant monitoring was essential to
get rid of worms and insects before they took over; plant diseases demanded
experimenting with simple but unreliable treatments. It all took vast
amounts of time, to anticipate weather, react quickly and respond to
nature. The rewards, though, were wonderful: we worked to save heirloom
peaches and nectarines with nectar that exploded on the palate, as well as
grapes that made sweet, plump raisins.

But Dad knew the toll of all this physical exertion. It could suck life
from your body. He rarely complained; I only heard from Mom about the long
nights when he awoke with cramps in his legs or the restless hours of back
pain as his body seemed to break down with age.

I walked up and stood next to him, and we leaned toward the thundering
engine to listen. Then I looked at his face. He was having a stroke: the
right side of his face drooped, his eyelid almost sealed shut, his eyes
glazed with a lost look. He didn’t recognize me.

He began to limp around the tractor. I held on to him, trying to keep him
from stumbling. I didn’t know what to do, but I thought I should first
shut off the engine and get him inside. I felt responsible. In my quest to
grow the perfect peach and the sweetest raisin, had I contributed to the
possible death of my father? I inherited his passion for work, one that was
being rewarded by the growing organic marketplace and the public demand for
real taste. The only way I knew how to meet that expectation was to work
harder. The flavors that I sought for my fruit could never be manufactured.
Such authentic flavors come only from nature — and authentic work. But
even if it kills you? I thought of the spirit of the artist who sacrifices
everything for the sake of his work. Couldn’t farmers be artists, too?

The tractor rumbled to a stop, and I tried to maneuver Dad inside. He
fought me, insisting on returning to his tractor. Still in shock, I gave in
to his will. I would not be able to farm with such guilt. He reached for
the tractor-seat cushion. At the end of the work day, we traditionally
flipped over the pad so that the morning dew wouldn’t collect on it and
bother the next driver. With a trembling left hand, he flipped it over,
then let me guide him. Together we limped toward the farmhouse.