Peaches from the Masumoto Family Farm awaken the worst kind of food lust, especially the heirloom peaches, a yellow flesh varietal that’s softer, juicier and fuzzier than the kind often found in supermarkets.

“They’re not the trophy wives of peaches,” said David Mas Masumoto about the deceptive appearance of the heirloom peaches grown in his orchard near Fresno, Calif. “When you lick your lips after eating a peach you can still taste it.”

Masumoto, a third generation farmer and Fresno JACL member who specializes in environmentally responsible farming, is part of a growing wave of Asian Pacific American organic farmers  — for both large-scale and backyard productions — who are abandoning the use of chemicals and pesticides in favor of more “green” techniques.

The Masumoto Family Farm has been farming organically since the 1980s, well before the organic movement became trendy.

“Prior to that, farming was all about controlling and dominating the environment,” said Masumoto, 57.

Masumoto’s parents and grandparents were farm workers on the land until they purchased it after World War II, freshly returned from their incarceration at the Gila River internment camp in Arizona. Like many other Japanese Americans, the Masumoto family was swept up in wartime hysteria after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and was forced to abandon their crops just months away from harvest.

Masumoto returned to the 80-acre farm after studying at the University of California, Berkeley, where he “learned to look at farming through an environmental lens,” to work side-by-side with his father Tak Masumoto and start planting the seeds of change. Today, the Masumoto Family Farm is certified organic.

“My parents were crazy in the most wonderful way to follow their ethical beliefs and to follow their hearts,” said Nikiko Masumoto, 25, about her parents’ pioneering effort to farm organically.

It is, of course, not just about being kind to the earth, organic food is a booming business. What started out as a specialty food craze has become mainstream with APA consumers leading the demand. Retail sales for organic foods have increased from $3.6 billion in 1997 to $21.1 billion in 2008, according to a 2009 report from the United States Department of Agriculture. A Hartman Group survey indicates that APA consumers are more likely to purchase organic products.

“Organic foods are the choice of many ethnic groups,” said Barbara Haumann, senior editor/writer with the Organic Trade Association, a membership-based business association for the organic industry in North America. “They [Asian Americans] are an emerging market.”

To be classified as organic, among other requirements, fruits and vegetables must be grown on land that has no prohibited substances or chemicals applied to it for at least three years prior to harvest.

“Anytime you purchase organic food, you’re supporting a system of agriculture where farmers and farm workers aren’t constantly exposed to toxic and persistent pesticides like they are with conventional farming,” said Haumann. “You’re also protecting the water and the Earth.”

To keep pests away, Masumoto uses the age-old practice of pheromone therapy in a new way.
The scent female moths secrete when trying to mate is infused on strips and hung from his fruit trees. Attracted by the scent, male moths fly around the orchard looking for the female moths until they eventually die of exhaustion.

“It’s called the confusion method … Yes, it is tragic,” said Masumoto with a laugh.

Fueled by demand, more farmers are getting into organic farming. Organic farmland acreage more than doubled from 1997 to 2005, according to the USDA.

But change, no matter how high the demand, takes time.

In Hawaii, Dean Okimoto, the owner of Nalo Farms, is experimenting with organically growing the Japanese root vegetable gobo inside three-inch polyvinyl chloride tubes. On his 16-acre farm, famous locally for producing fresh baby greens, Okimoto has dedicated two fields to growing organic tomatoes, eggplants and okra and experimenting with fertilizer made from natural products like eggshells.

“So far so good,” said Okimoto, 56. “The bugs are staying away. The plants are growing really well.”

He sees growth in the future for organic farming especially with the skyrocketing price of fertilizer.
“For me it’s about the land. I don’t want to be poisoning the land. I want to pass it on in good shape for the next generation,” said the Sansei farmer.

The organic food movement has been slower to catch on in Hawaii than in the mainland, said Okimoto, in part because of the high cost. He hopes his experiment will create a sustainable model to help make organic food more accessible to all consumers. The concept is simple: Okimoto sells his organic produce to hotels and other businesses at a higher price in order to make the same food more accessible at a lower price for schools and lower income communities.

“We need to get real,” he said. “It [the organic movement] is here to stay.”

Beyond farmers, a new generation of APA leaders is also trying to spur change in the agricultural industry.

After graduating from the University of Southern California last year, Akemi Imai, 23, took an internship at the Catskill Mountain Foundation Natural Agricultural Farm in New York watering crops, planting seeds and harvesting produce on the 4.5-acre farm.

“I was not sure what I wanted to do career-wise and this was an opportunity to try something very different — I had never tried farming or anything related to agriculture before,” said Imai, who is Shin Issei (post-WWII first generation Japanese American).

The farm, located in a small town called Sugar Maples, incorporates the principles of Shumei Natural Agriculture, which advocates the use of home-saved seeds and prohibits chemicals or even animal manure as fertilizer.

It’s about respecting “nature and its natural cycles, and for the farmer and consumer to have gratitude for nature’s bounty,” said Imai, who will be returning to the farm in June to run the internship program.

The organic food movement does have its detractors and skeptics. A 2009 review conducted by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition revealed that the nutritional content of organic food was no more nutritious than food produced with the use of synthetic pesticides.

Vince Trieu, 35, does not buy organic food. The Los Angeles resident says he really doesn’t think about the origins of the food he eats.

“I don’t really believe in it,” he said.

But with its increasing popularity, the organic food movement has even created new generations of intrepid APA backyard farmers who are growing fruits and vegetables for personal consumption.

At his mom’s house in San Gabriel, Calif. Andy Huynh, 29, surveys the many edible Asian fruits and greens thriving in an otherwise typical suburban backyard.

“There’s a longan tree, two guava trees and chili [plants],” he pauses and adds, “My mom is a typical Asian American lady.”

Basil, mint and kumquats are among some other prized plants he names. They are never sprayed with pesticides or chemicals, he says. It’s a family tradition that spans across generations handed down from Huynh’s grandmother, who toiled in her own backyard garden, to his mom and eventually to him one day.

From the backyard to the dinner table, it doesn’t get any more local and organic than that.

“It’s beneficial,” said Huynh, who is third generation Vietnamese American. “You don’t have to go to the supermarket, so you can save some money. But it’s also beneficial for the health too because there are no pesticides.”