Fujii Farms Inc.

info as of 10/3/2022

Fujii Farms

Farm Market Stand

27001 SE Stark st, Troutdale

Across the street from the Dairy Queen



Closed

for the season 

Saturday 10/1/22 was our last day

Thank You

& see you next summer 

Email:  Info@fujiifarms.com 

 Fujii Berry Stand at 27001 SE Stark in Troutdale  

We grow all the our berries within a two mile radius of our produce stands.  We also grow a few vegetables ie, beans, super sweet corn, cukes, when avaliable. And we'll be bringing in local produce.

 

 If & when the weather gets too Hot, we might close early. If too Windy we will be closed until the wind subsides. 

 Senior Tuesday discount day 10%



LOCAL FARMERS MARKET

Hollywood Grocery Outlet (Sat, 8-2),  

St Johns Farmers (Sat 9-2),  

Moreland farmers (Sat, 10-2), 

South Water Front (Thurs, 2-7), 

 We accept Credit Card 

Also accept

Double up food bucks

We do not accept EBT

Tuesday is a 10% discount off for all Seniors 63 and Older.

All produce is a 100% refundable for bad product.

  The Morning Work

   The Fujii Family has been farming along the Columbia River in Troutdale, Oregon since 1943 providing the west coast with some of Oregon's finest berries. The third generation farm is carried on by Ray Fujii; raising 120 acres of Strawberries, Raspberries, Blueberries, and Blackberries.

  We value your safety along with the food industry, so to better monitor ourselves we have the USDA audit us annually. Our passing scores have certified us GAP & GHP. ( Good Agricultural Practices and Good Handling Practices )

 On the farm

    Berries, Berries, Berries. We grow, pack, and distrubute some of the finest fresh eating, preserving and commercial shipping varieties. Our berries are harvested and delivered each morning.  With over 150 acres to choose from, you'll be getting the cream of the crop.  The remaining summertime jewels are sorted and preserved for a later time. (freezing, jamming, and syrups.)

   The berries are sold direct to you at our farm market stands and some farmers markets.  Otherwise the majority of our berries are sold to you indirectly, through major commercial grocery chains.

 

Strawberries,

American history intertwined

in East County  

The Gresham Outlook 

Newspaper, June 11 2021

Historian and columnist Sharon Nesbit tells the back story of Fujii Farms in East Multnomah County as it intersects with World War II-era racism.

The Fujii Farms berry stand opened a few weeks ago at the corner of Stark Street and Troutdale Road. Just when I begin to think summer will never come, a sign goes up, the stand opens and strawberries are lined up like boxes of red jewels.

On occasion, because it is not nice to spit it on the floor, I have been obliged to eat a California strawberry. They come with pulpy wooden centers that likely help with the shipping them in a truck, but they are faint imitations of a real strawberry.

Real strawberries are grown by the Fujiis and farmers like them. Fujii berries began with immigrant, Bukichi Fujii. Because of racist laws, he could not own his own farm. But Fujii and his wife, Yoshino, had seven children and once an American-born child reached 18, title to the land could be held by that child.

In May 1942, with the nation at war with Japan, Japanese Americans were shattered by a government decision to move all people of Japanese descent, citizens or not, to inland internment camps.

The eldest Fujii son, Kazuo, was serving in the U.S. Army in Texas and was issued a rifle. Further, the act that sent the Japanese away included people of Italian and German descent, but that was ignored.

The Fujiis were supposed to live behind barbed wire in Minidoka in Idaho, but the elder Fujii jumped at a chance to hire his family out as laborers in Nyssa where farmers were crying for help. Technically they were still in Oregon, but apparently no danger to the nation wielding hoes and shovels.

The late Jim Fujii remembered their early incarceration at Portland’s exposition center as the most fun he ever had because there was nothing to do but play baseball.

His father/taskmaster interrupted, taking them east on the train to live in a tent and work in other people’s fields. Those whose studies at Gresham High were interrupted, attended Nyssa High. There they met up with members of my family, poor white farmers, refugees from the Midwest dust storms, growing sugar beets for the war effort.

Ed Fujii’s obituary tells that story: “Facing community hostility, most families had to sell their homes and all properties under short notice and duress, at a staggering loss. The Fujii family, however were able to recruit a neighboring family, Charlotte and Scott Cunningham, to live in the house and take over all farming activities.”

Charlotte Cunningham had been the Fujii family’s crew boss, organizing pickers, likely driving buses and running day-to-day harvest operations, an ideal summer job for moms. Her son, Scott, later president of the Troutdale Historical Society, remembered the night Bukichi Fujii came to their home asking the Cunninghams, primarily Charlotte, to operate his farm while he and his family were away. Bukichi Fujii was a formidable figure, but Scott remembered seeing tears flowing down his cheeks when the Cunninghams agreed.

Many Japanese farmers lost their farms and crops ready to harvest and would never return. The Fujiis were able to return home at war’s end, though they faced shameful “No Jap” signs in most store windows. Two exceptions were Zim’s 12-Mile Corner and the Troutdale General Store.

Ed Fujii found his wife in Nyssa in a Hillsboro family also obliged to move there to work. He would later be a produce broker and live a long life in Gresham, dying at 98. He was an announcer at Judo competitions. He liked to bowl and play golf. A successful man.

The last piece of Kaz Fujii’s farm land is across from Cherry Park Center in Troutdale and now covered with new apartments. The Jim Fujii farm continues in the hands of his descendants. Real strawberries, grown in the field next door.

Sharon Nesbit can be reached at snesbit@theoutlookonline.com