The Abridged version:
- Joanne Neft helped grow Placer County land conservation from zero to nearly 50%.
- She launched the first of 14 farmers markets in Placer County and put locally grown mandarins on the national stage.
- Today, Placer County foods reach Michelin-starred kitchens statewide, and her cookbooks have sold more than 40,000 copies.
Before Placer County became known for its farm-to-fork dining, before its produce started showing up on the menus of Michelin-starred and James Beard award-winning restaurants, before its name carried weight at places like the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market in San Francisco or the Sacramento Certified Farmers Market, there was Joanne Neft.
She saw it coming, not as a trend, but as something that needed to be protected before it was lost.
“My purpose has always been to preserve and protect,” she said. “I’ve done that for 50 years. I started in 1970.”
At the time, there was no movement behind her or real conversation around local food systems or sustainability.
“Nothing. I mean nothing. Nobody had even thought about it,” Neft said recently from her Auburn living room overlooking the American River just a few months after her 90th birthday.
What she saw in 1970 — and today — was not just land. It was the future of a county that had not yet realized what it had. Joanne Neft was determined to change that, and what she has done has put Placer County on a one-of-a-kind map.
A different kind of gold
Placer County has always been tied to the Gold Rush and to the idea that its value was something buried underground.
Joanne Neft saw something else.
“The real value was already here, in the soil, in the farms, and in the people who had been growing food here for generations,” Neft said. “The farmers here just needed someone to see it, say it, believe it, and prove it. I said, ‘I can do that’ because it is truth.”
Placer County is home to foothills, farmland, rivers and many microclimates that allow farmers to grow just about anything.
“We live in such a unique area,” she said. “There aren’t a lot of places in the world that can say that pretty much everything in a whole state exists in one county. And we can say that in Placer County.”
Preservation in perpetuity
Neft knew what made it special also made it vulnerable, something she was not willing to let happen. The Placer County Board of Supervisors appointed Neft to lead the first Placer Legacy Citizens Advisory Committee. She had one task — to preserve farmland and open space. In typical Neft fashion, she delivered more than she took on.
“This land needs to be preserved in perpetuity,” she said. “That’s the only way it’s going to be here.”
Neft worked with local leaders to help protect large portions of Placer County as farmland and open space.
The result is clear. When Neft moved to Placer County 50 years ago, zero land was in conservation and preservation. Today, nearly half of the county is protected, including her own scenic land.
“Nobody is going to come along and say, ‘You are preserved,’” she said. “It was our responsibility to make that happen.”
The problem no one was solving
The farmers were already doing incredible work, and Neft is insistent that was never the issue. They knew how to grow exceptional products. What they didn’t have was a system that allowed them to survive.
“Farmers are fabulous growers,” Neft said. “But they are not marketers.”
Neft took on a task that would ultimately affect every farm in Placer County, something she had done her entire life. Born on a farm in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Neft grew up with her hands in the soil, homesteading on land that belonged to her grandfather who moved to America in 1930.
“I would load up my wagon and go door to door and sell fresh fruits and vegetables to my neighbors, and my grandfather let me keep the money.”
Allergies prompted a change of scenery
Neft moved to Berkeley in the 1960s and had two children.
In 1969, Neft’s son Steven – who was 3 years old at the time – had severe allergies.
“He couldn’t breathe, and the doctor wanted to put Steven on all these pills, and I said, ‘Well, we will see about that’ and went home,” Neft said. “I said to my then-husband, ‘We’re moving because I am not going to send my children to school all loaded up with drugs’ and we are out of here.”
Neft decided to get young Steven away from his allergies. She would have to move to either the ocean or the mountains. The Nefts moved to Lake Tahoe in 1969. Steven’s allergies disappeared.
“My parents lived in Santa Barbara, and I would go take my children down to visit them, and Santa Barbara had a farmers market,” she said.
The seed was planted.
Neft raised her children in Tahoe and became active in local organizations. Neft was not happy that there wasn’t a single farmers market in the Lake Tahoe area — or anywhere in Placer County.
Neft said, “I’m going to go to Auburn and start a farmers market. And we’re going now.”
The farmers market that changed everything
Joanne Neft moved to Auburn and approached the Board of Supervisors in 1989. Neft asked for $2,000 to start a farmers market in Placer County. They agreed.
That decision changed everything.
“She created the first farmers market in Placer County,” said Rob Haswell, CEO of the Placer County Visitors Bureau. “Now there’s one almost every day.”
One market has grown to 14 farmers markets in the county and 40 fresh food farm stands.
Before regional branding became standard, Joanne Neft was already doing the work.
“She understood early on that if you wanted to preserve agriculture, you had to create direct-to-consumer pipelines,” Haswell said. “That’s how farmers make a living. That’s how you keep land from being sold off.”
So, she created those connections. Neft means business, and she knows it, too.
Trained in Denver at the Barnes School of Commerce, Neft owned several businesses in the Tahoe area, including a lumber company and a bed and breakfast, and later a storage facility in Newcastle. She held a marketing position with Placer County for a time, managed the farmers market group she created and launched an education foundation at the Twelve Bridges development corporation.
Placer Grown is born
Neft founded Placer Grown, connecting farmers directly with people and giving the region an identity tied to quality.
“Placer is ahead of its time because Joanne was ahead of her time,” Haswell said. “They broke the mold with Joanne.”
That early work helped shape broader efforts like California Grown, but for Neft, it was never about recognition.
It was about making sure farmers could keep farming.
Today, Placer County has around 1,000 small family farms, many of which rely on direct-to-consumer sales that trace back to those early markets.
“That’s how you sustain agriculture,” Haswell said.
What Neft helped build locally grew across the state.
Today, ingredients from Placer County are featured in Michelin-starred and James Beard award-winning restaurants, where chefs are looking for quality and authenticity. They’re also front and center at some of California’s most recognized farmers markets, including the Sacramento Certified Farmers Market and the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market in San Francisco.
Proving it with science
It started with a single mandarin.
“A friend gave me a mandarin and I had never tasted anything like this,” Neft recalled.
At the time, there were only a handful of growers.
“Six,” Rob Haswell said.
Neft recognized its potential and wanted to prove it. She commissioned a study through the Food and Drug Administration to analyze Placer County mandarins.
The results confirmed what Neft instinctually felt. The study proved Placer-grown Satsuma and Clementine mandarins contain significant amounts of synephrine, which is known as a natural antihistamine and decongestant.
Neft jumped on the results. The discovery allowed local growers to market their mandarins as a superfruit. Superfruits are nutrient-dense and packed with exceptionally high levels of antioxidants, vitamins, minerals and fiber that help fight inflammation, boost immunity and prevent disease.
The study highlighted the unique quality of Placer County mandarins, which thrive in the climate of the foothills.
Neft wanted to give famers something they had never had before: credibility.
“I’m going to change that,” she said.
Today, there are nearly 100 mandarin growers in Placer County.
“Joanne Neft established Placer County as the preeminent Satsuma mandarin producer in California, bar none. And maybe the entire country. That was all Joanne, that was her vision,” Haswell said. “It’s rare to be a big picture thinker and also be somebody who would get out and actually do the work and get her hands dirty. Joanne is the multiplier effect.”
Neft founded the Mountain Mandarin Festival in 1994. It attracted 1,500 attendees in its first year. Today, it attracts more than 50,000 visitors.
A table that built a community
If the land was the foundation and the markets were the system, the kitchen table may have been where Joanne’s vision came to life most clearly.
Alongside chef and author Laura Kenny, Neft built something that required both discipline and heart.
“For 52 weeks, we went to the farmers market every Saturday,” Laura Kenny said. “On Monday nights, we cooked for six to eight people and built the cookbook from those meals.”
Every week followed the same rhythm. Farmers market. Plan. Cook. Gather. Eat. Write.
Six to eight people would sit around the table, often people they had never met before.
“After the first meal, Joanne said, ‘Wouldn’t it be nice if somebody else was able to enjoy this as well?’ and it took off.”
Neft sent one email to her list of contacts and within two weeks the calendar was full for the entire year.
“I had to wait nine months to get my grandmother on this list. We were that booked. That’s the power of Joanne. A lot of times, the people coming were complete strangers,” Kenny said. “They came together over good food, and that made it really special.”
They did it every week for a year. That’s 420 people.
Said Kenny: “And in perfect Joanne style, (Neft said). ‘Let’s do it again.’”
Those meals became two cookbooks: Placer County Real Food and The Art of Real Food.
Neft self-published and self-funded the entire project.
Then came the work of getting them out into the world.
Neft and Kenny traveled across California, loading up Neft’s Prius and going from farmers markets to bookstores to events — cooking, teaching and sharing the story of Placer County agriculture.
They sold more than 40,000 copies.
The tie that binds and the message that remains
Joanne Neft doesn’t spend time talking about legacy.
“I hope I’ve made a difference,” she said.
But the impact is everywhere.
“She was way ahead of the curve,” Haswell said. “On healthy eating. On eating local. On understanding what Placer County could be.”
“She’s not just a big picture thinker. She’s a doer.”
For Laura Kenny, that impact is personal.
“She’s such a big part of who I am,” she said. “She made me better.”
At the center of everything Neft has done is one idea.
“She connects people just because they need to be connected,” Kenny said. “Not for any benefit to herself.”
“She just wants people to grow together.”
That idea now shows up across Placer County — in its farms, its markets and its sense of community.
The treasure that was always there
Joanne Neft is still going strong.
“We are what we eat,” she said. “We’re healthier if we eat fresh, local, in-season food.”
With a clean bill of health at 90 years old, Neft is planning the next 10 years of her life. But she stills starts each day the same.
“I wake up in the morning and I feel very, very humbled. And then I say, ‘Thank you.’ Thank you to the good people of Placer County. And thank you to the good people of California who had the good sense to preserve and conserve this amazing space,” Neft said, her voice full of emotion.
And when asked what she hopes people take from her life’s work, her answer is simple.
“I hope I’ve made a difference.”
There is no doubt she has.
Placer County was built on gold. But Joanne Neft understood something deeper.
The real wealth was never buried. It was growing in the fields.
And because of Joanne Neft, the world finally sees it.
Rob Stewart is a senior correspondent and host with PBS KVIE, and reports for Abridged.
This story was updated at 8 a.m. March 30, 2026 to identify mandarins as the type of fruit in a photo caption.