Blog post from Nicole Van Vleck: A True Modern Marvel

I always love how fascinated people who are not involved in agriculture are to see the rice harvest. Some of my earliest memories were driving a harvester on my dad’s lap. Thus, I don’t often think about the sheer size of the harvester or the amount of logistics involved in the entire process.

The History Channel even has taken notice of rice production and harvest in California and is doing an episode on the long running Modern Marvels series. I spent all day with the producer, photographer, sound guy and director helping them capture harvest at Montna Farms. It was a bit of a challenge just scheduling them. The cool summer has made harvest touch and go since we started, because the rice has been barely dry enough to cut. The crew did arrive on a day that we were harvesting and had more cameras than people to run them. They even attached a camera to one of the harvesters themselves. This proved a bad idea as it fell off and was lost in the straw covered field. Just as they were fascinated with harvest, I was interested in seeing them capture it all for TV.

Even if most of the shots end up on the cutting room floor, I am looking forward sharing with Modern Marvel fans everywhere a little bit about California’s rice harvest.

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Nicole Montna Van Vleck is a third generation rice farmer who farms with her parents and sister in Sutter County. Nicole is Managing Partner of Montna Farms which grows, dries and stores super premium short grain rice. Montna Farms partners with many waterfowl organizations to protect and enhance waterfowl habitat primarily on its working rice lands.

Nicole is a graduate of UCLA and The California Agricultural Leadership Program. Nicole and her husband Stan have two school-aged children.