Nicole Montna Van Vleck, Montna Farms
High-Quality, California-Grown
The Montna family began farming in Sutter County in the late 1800s and grew prunes, apricots, peaches and Thompson seedless grapes. The family has owned and operated Montna Farms in Dingville, California, since the late 1930s. Throughout the decades, the Montna’s have refined and perfected the process for producing several varieties of super-premium, Japonica-style short grain rice, which is sold in well-known restaurants such as Nobu and Samba Sushi in Las Vegas. The current CEO, Nicole Montna Van Vleck, says the family has such a high standard for quality that the entire staff at Montna Farms has undergone special training to ensure they produce the highest quality Japanese style rice varieties, consistently, for every harvest.
Caring for Wildlife
The Montna’s have embraced innovation and were early adopters efficiently managing the water available to them and the areas surrounding their farm. As a result, they were the first to create a wildlife-friendly agricultural easement in California. Today, Montna Farms has thousands of acres under working lands easements that will be dedicated to agriculture and provide water for wintering waterfowl migrating along the Pacific Flyway. Not only does Montna Farms use water for dual purposes, but they also employ GPS technology to level every rice acre in an effort to conserve water usage.
California Values
“The Sacramento Valley is truly a unique mosaic of productive farmlands, wildlife refuges and managed wetlands, cities and rural communities. When you have an opportunity to co-exist with whatever habitat is nearby, you have the possibility of a win-win. It can prove, as we have proven at Montna Farms, that agriculture is about more than just providing a high-yielding crop, more than just returning back to the farmer. It’s about returning something back to the earth that sustains the farmers and the wildlife that will be here in the future. ”
