Mas Masumoto

Mas Masumoto is a third-generation farmer—he grows organic peaches, nectarines, and raisins on an 80-acre farm south of Fresno. He is also the author of 15 books, including Epitaph for a Peach, Changing Season, Wisdom of the Last Farmer, Four Seasons in Five Senses, A Sense of Yosemite, and Harvest Son. With his wife, Marcy, and his daughter, Nikiko, he published a family farm cookbook, The Perfect Peach. Changing Season, a documentary about the theme of succession on the Masumoto family farm, was nationally broadcast by PBS in May 2016. A recent book, Secret Harvests, was featured on NPR Unsung Hero, Milk Street Radio, and Snap Judgment. Another recent book, Shadow Music, was transformed into a musical composition and performed by the Fresno Philharmonic in 2025. He, with daughter Nikiko, published a children’s book, Every Peach Is a Story, in 2025. His writing awards include the Commonwealth Club Silver Medal, Julia Child Cookbook Award, and the James Clavell Literacy  Award; he was a finalist for a James Beard Foundation Award and 2024 National Book Critics Circle Award. The National Resources Defense Council recognized Wisdom of the Last Farmer as the best environmental writing in 2009. In 2024, Secret Harvests was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. He currently serves on the board of CalMatters and the Central Valley Community Foundation   and is a columnist for the Fresno Bee. He was a Kellogg Foundation Food and Society Policy Fellow and served on Public Policy Institute of California board of directors from 2009 to 2023—as board chair from 2016 to 2018—and currently serves on the PPIC Statewide Leadership Council. He previously served on the James Irvine Foundation board and chaired the California Council for the Humanities board. In 2013 President Obama appointed him to the National Council on the Arts, the board for the National Endowment for the Arts, where he served until 2022.