Producer

My name is Paul Prather and I grew up in San Diego with no farming background. I moved to Chico, CA in 2013 and started my farming expedition on an organic vineyard. We had a couple spaces for vegetable gardens on the property and in these spaces my passion in life for producing food was born. I have been growing and diversifying ever since and finally started my own business my senior year at CSU Chico, named Covering Ground Farms. The name stems from my interest in regenerative agriculture practices that I studied in my final years at CSU Chico. Cover cropping, mulching, broadcasting compost, and hedge rows are all things that keep the ground covered and protect our soil. I started Covering Ground Farms as a microgreen business for my internship and it went really well, but I wanted to start a small farm with more diversity. In the middle of that semester I stumbled across the piece of land I am growing on till this day. It was a slow start having started a farming business right as the covid pandemic happened. I took on some part time jobs helping on other established farms building irrigation systems, greenhouses, and plenty more agriculture related work.

Fortunately, I was able to start working on my farm full time this year and have been expanding mixed row crop production selling at multiple farmers markets, smaller wholesale accounts, restaurants and direct to consumer. Going forward we are currently prepping a few new field blocks regeneratively and will be specializing in premium head lettuce and salad mixes for wholesale and local markets. On top of that we will have a diverse market garden and offering a nice selection of fresh seasonal produce.

Covering Ground engages in Climate-Smart practices, including the following: Conservation Crop Rotation, Cover Cropping, Field Borders, Hedgerow Planting, Mulching
Nutrient Management, Pest Management Conservation System, Soil Health Testing, and Tree/Shrub Establishment.