Mountain Bounty Farm needs your support today!

Dear Farm Friends,

Let me tell you a story about the farm. Once upon a time, 28 years ago, a ragtag bunch of hardworking idealists began growing vegetables in the hills of Nevada County. Over the years, the local community came to enjoy the food they produced, the farm grew and improved in many ways, and eventually Mountain Bounty Farm became somewhat of a local institution.

However, It was a fragile enterprise, like most small farms it swam against powerful currents. The economics of growing food have always been tough. Nevertheless, due to hard work, creativity, and your support, the farm experienced a long period of relative success.

Now, the farm is at a crossroads. Intensifying economic currents are catching up to this upstream swimming creature, and we are beginning to sink. Put simply, our costs (like everyone’s!), are way up. And income has not kept up. CSA membership has dropped from a pandemic high of 850 to now around 600. In 2023, for the first time ever, we lost money. We operate close to bone: we fix most broken things ourselves, and there is not much more we can cut. Our crew, which is by far our biggest cost, is also our biggest treasure, and what makes Mountain Bounty unique. Because of the incredible skill and effort of our crew, and despite the economic challenges, the farm is operating at its highest level and growing food better than ever before.

So what are we going to do? We are going to make a big ask for your help and make some changes that nobody is going to like. We are going to raise our prices by 5%, and will raise them again in 6 months. Also, we are going to limit the amount of members’ box holds to 2 holds per 6 months, which was our practice before 2020. We introduced unlimited box holds in 2020 and the program has been very popular. In any given week there are around 120 boxes on hold. We cannot sustain this. We understand that we may lose some members due to these changes. But if we don’t do this...things aren’t going to work out anyway, so we are left with this choice. Please stick with us, if you want us to continue, we need your help. It’ll mean a few dollars more per box, and the effort of finding a neighbor or friend to pickup your box while you are away (or you can choose to donate it). Thank you in advance, we know this isn’t the best news, but we gotta give it to you straight.

Another thing we can do is gather more members! We are doing our best to toot our own horns, and you can help us by continuing to tell your friends. Word of mouth, that beautiful proof of a functioning community, has always been the way people have come to us.

Please consider your options, and consider how much you value your local farms, the produce we bring to your table, but also the many other ways we build and add to the community. Mountain Bounty is not and has never been easy, but together, we can keep this story going.

As always, thank you for your support!

John Tecklin

Support the farm with a farm box subscription!

Our Farm

Mountain Bounty Farm is a 50 acre organic family farm located high on the forested contours of the San Juan Ridge near Nevada City, California. Our main fields are on Birchville Road, where we currently cultivate 18 acres. The rest of land is a beautiful mosaic of forest and meadows. We are the oldest and largest CSA farm in the Sierras. Our Farm was founded in 1997 by John Tecklin. John has been farming since the early 1990’s and is native to the San Juan Ridge. Since then, Mountain Bounty has become an increasingly collaborative effort, with a team of farmers making decisions and working together.

Our Land

In October 2020, our current farmland on Birchville Road, was officially bought through a partnership with the Bear Yuba Land Trust (BYLT), Sierra Harvest, BriarPatch Food Co-op and Tahoe Food Hub, called Forever Farms. With community support of this program, BYLT has bought and will hold the property in perpetuity, protect it from development and safeguard affordable access to the farmland by providing a long-term lease to Mountain Bounty Farm. BYLT will manage this property to ensure it continues to produce local, organic food in an ecologically responsible way for the benefit of the community.

We look forward to building on the momentum of this first Forever Farm and establish a land security model, through community support, that creates a lasting legacy.

Nisenan Land Acknowledgements

We acknowledge these are the ancestral homelands of the Nevada City Rancheria Nisenan Tribe.
We acknowledge this land was taken repeatedly with no compensation or regard for the lives and ways of the original people, until they had no land left.
We acknowledge we are settlers here, that we live, love and work on land the Nisenan never ceded.

Our Practices

Our farming style and philosophy are very simple. By being very attentive to the land, the crops, and the weather, we can succeed at the very challenging art of growing good food. Our techniques involve time-tested organic farming practices that above all prioritize care for the soil. We make heavy use of cover crops, beneficial insectary plantings, compost and organic soil amendments. We are certified organic by CCOF. However, we see the organic standards as a starting point and believe that a much better job is possible. Our efforts and investments are rewarded with a bounty of exceptional produce and a farm that continues to improve year by year.

our mission

We aim to provide a reliable local source of the highest quality produce for our area, and to work towards the economic sustainability of our rural community. We also want the farm to be a place of inspiration and beauty, a place to reconnect to food and the joys of food culture. We hope that Mountain Bounty will be a farm to celebrate, a farm that you help create and sustain for the future.

thank you for your continued support

After all these years, we remain as committed as ever to the CSA ideal of building a relationship of trusting support between farmers and eaters. We are grateful to all of our members for their continued support. Thank you for believing in us.

Press

Farmers at the Forefront: Management Changes at Mountain Bounty Farm (Moonshine Ink, 2021)

As Food Supply Chain Breaks Down, Farm-To-Door CSAs Take Off (NPR, 2020)

Gateway Gardens: Pandemic gardening, farm boxes, and food equity (Moonshine Ink, 2020)

Bear Yuba Land Trust, Sierra Harvest and BriarPatch Food Co-op launch Forever Farms partnership to protect local food production and supply (Yuba Net, 2020)

Forever Farms Partners Raise More Than $780,000 to Protect Critical Farmland in Nevada County (Yuba Net, 2020)

Bear Yuba Land Trust asks for public’s help in raising money for land purchase (The Union, 2020)

We’re Compiling a List of CSAs in All 50 States (Modern Farmer, 2020)

Stay food secure with CSAs (The Union, 2020)

Working Lands II, Mountain Bounty Farm (Sierra Harvest, 2016)

Working the land at Nevada County’s historic farms (The Union, 2016)

Farmers find their niche (The Union, 2005)