WHY WE MUST SUPPORT IDEALISTIC CSA FARMS: FROM MOUNTAIN BOUNTY OWNER AND FOUNDER, JOHN TECKLIN
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the value and uniqueness of Mountain Bounty Farm; pondering the ways our society can sometimes make all relationships appear transactional; about buying and selling vs caring, sharing, and giving; about how much we can get and how convenient it is to get it; and about how Mountain Bounty strives to be more than “just” an organic farm; and about how our food, our team, our land, and our mission is deeply woven into the fabric of this community––including the values we live by, and those we create.
For almost 30 years Mountain Bounty has served as a leader and trailblazer in the local food movement. We were the originators of the CSA to this region, a founding member and anchor in the Nevada City Farmers Market, and have spawned numerous other farms, both nearby and across the US, with most of the local farms in our area started by founders and/or farmers who got their start at Mountain Bounty. Sierra Harvest and 3 Forks Brewery were both started, in part, by Mountain Bounty alumni. Building local food culture––with potatoes, peppers, and people––has been our mission and practice from the start.
But it’s more than influence or good farming, it’s process, it’s purpose, it’s farming in a way that reflects the vision and integrity with which it was started. Mountain Bounty has an unusually flat management structure, with decision making and responsibility shared and distributed among our entire crew. Our strength, smarts, and resilience come from this shared power, both in and out of the garden. This structure is often used to define key reasons we retain incredible farmers who spend years tending to the same 18 acres season after season, harvest after harvest. Simply put, we aim to create the best possible working environment by empowering our team, paying them as much as possible, and offering as many benefits, and as much support, as we can.
But it’s not only our on-site team who have access to Mountain Bounty, we offer an open door for visitors to view the farm, we lead tours and workshops for school groups and those who want to learn about organic food and farming. We donate huge amounts of produce, weekly, that is distributed to various aid organizations in the community. In 2023 these donations amassed an incredible $50,000 worth of produce. We offer a financial aid program to those who cannot afford the CSA, and we have gone through the difficult process to be able to accept SNAP and EBT, so that we can serve all, not only those with abundance.
Subscribing to our CSA is more than just making a commitment to fresh, local, seasonal, and organic produce. It’s also a subscription to activism, to improving food systems, to local aid, to nonprofits, to our local economy, and to the affirmation that you intend to support our efforts to create a richer, more interconnected way of life.
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