How BI, Vashon are handling ag history

Farmland is precious on an island. So how do you honor history while making use of such a resource?

Suyematsu Farm off of Day Road on Bainbridge Island is unique for a number of reasons, but its story is nearly identical to a few other island-based farms in the Puget Sound Region: the Matsuda and Mukai Farms on Vashon Island. But where the Matsuda farm has become a modern practice and the Mukai Farm is a venerated historic site, advocates of the Suyematsu farm seek to accomplish both.

Present-day Matsuda and Mukai farms took a lot of work, but the Suyematsu property has everything going for it.

Suyematsu Farm Legacy Alliance (SFLA) leaders Jon Garfunkel, Carol Reitz and Brian Shibayama spoke to members of the BI Senior Community Center this month about the history of the Suyematsu family and the organization’s plans to restore structures on the property.

Initial restoration cost projections are about $180,000. The city has already kicked in one-third of that.

“Every Bainbridge Islander has a story about Suyematsu farm, in one-way shape or another. From a whole generation of islander families connected to farms or the agricultural experience, or who were pickers on that farm, or who knew Akio or other family members, who visited the pumpkin patch in educational context in the modern day—there are so many stories embedded,” Garfunkel said. “Everyone has a connection to what we consider a sacred space of agricultural land.”

Suyematsu is the largest working farm on BI, and one of the largest in Kitsap County and among the oldest in Western Washington. In 2016, about five acres of the farm and all the original buildings were designated the city’s first Historic Preservation District.

The farm’s history captures defining characteristics of BI: the legacy of a family who endured incarceration; a strawberry farm where Filipino and indigenous pickers fell in love and formed BI’s Indipino community; a trailblazing organic farming operation that prioritized healthy and sustainable practices before it became the norm; and a modern source of food and education for local residents.

Reitz, director of the BI Japanese American Community, said that the creation of the Japanese American Exclusion Memorial taught her that a physical exhibit sends a strong historical message like no other.

“I’m excited for the Indipino community because they have a great story, but there is no physical place for folks to come and learn about it,” Reitz said. “The picker cabins and the farm area is the perfect place where those two stories come together, and is a physical place where that story can be told much more easily and more widely.”

SFLA’s plans may be able to combine the retrospective elements of the Mukai farm and the functionality of the Matsuda farm to create a living memory of BI’s early 20th-century history. “With this restoration, we can tell the story of not just the Suyematsu family, but the story of the Japanese American agricultural experience,” Garfunkel said. “It’s the last of the original Bainbridge Island farms. There’s no place else where you can bear witness to one hundred years of history.”

Seventeen miles away on Vashon Island, the Mukai and Matsuda farms have a similar 100-year-old story. Strawberry farming shaped the land, incarceration marred the community, and in the decades that followed, the families each worked to adapt to changing economic tides. But today, the active management is focused on either farming or historic preservation, not both.

The Matsuda farm is managed by a land trust, which is dedicated to protecting Vashon’s “wild and working lands.” The addition of the Matsuda farm has created a new land preservation strategy: combatting climate change. The trust has transitioned that farm to regenerative agriculture—farming that prioritizes capturing carbon and increasing biodiversity. Director Theron Shaw said that farm’s proximity to the much larger and higher profile Mukai farm, and the lack of space for visitors, makes it more suited to a working farm than a historic site.

Even though that farm’s story takes a back seat to operations, it sees huge support from the community. Volunteers show up weekly to help, Shaw said. “People have a lot of positive sentiment around the farm, and feel some ownership of the land there,” Shaw said. “I think people really appreciate the chance to work on the farm and to be contributing their time and energy towards feeding the island’s kids, and some of our food also goes to the food bank, and so they appreciate what the volunteering that they’re doing is very material, edible service to the island community.”

The Mukai Farm is also managed by a nonprofit, called Friends of Mukai, but it’s gone all-in on historic preservation rather than continuing the Mukai family’s work as a fruit barrelling plant. Island agriculture and Japanese-style gardening practices are part of the nonprofit’s priorities, but the land’s primary use is as a historic site.

Friends of Mukai acquired ownership of the property from King County in September after a years-long legal battle and a fight to raise awareness of the property’s historical significance. It paid off: the nonprofit won about $1.5 million in grants from national funds to begin its restoration in 2025.

Back on BI, Suyematsu is one of the only parcels of farmland in the state owned by a civic entity. The city of BI bought the farm in 2001, and it offers long-term leases to farmers to till the land. While the city contracts with local nonprofit Friends of the Farm to manage daily operations, it still helps maintain parts of the property.

That works for both the city and farmers, deputy city manager Ellen Schroer said, because it fulfills the city’s requirement to preserve open spaces, and the farmers can rely on the land and worker housing being available every year.

It’s a boon that the project and the history of the farm already has the community’s attention, said Shibayama, who is Akio Suyematsu’s nephew. Even when his uncle sold the property, there was “a big interest in the farm and preserving the way it was.”

Artifacts—like a knife sharpening stone, farm equipment, photos and more—are still available to draw on for restoration.

“It’s important to us to honor what is old and to bring back a traditional sense of community—that to some might seem ancient,” Garfunkel said. “Our job isn’t to make it shiny clean, but to bring it back into working condition so that people can experience that.”