The Arcola Farms Origin Story:
David Stennes, Arcola Farms founder and CEO, had an interest in horticulture early in life, with his first outside summer job as groundskeeper for an estate, where Arcola Bridge crosses over Lake Minnetonka. In high school and college, summers were spent in horticulture education, working with trees to treat Dutch Elm Disease, with the cure that his uncle, Mark Stennes, created at the University of Minnesota. Mark was a renowned plant pathologist, scientist and researcher, who’s later work included the discovery and product creation of the disease resistant St. Croix Elm (available commercially at Bachmans and Gertens).
In 2018, with a lifetime of passionate interest in plants, forestry, and farming, David and his wife, Mary, bought out her family’s interest in their Wisconsin farm. Decades of chemical spraying and field-damaging tilling had eroded the monoculture corn and soybean fields to what had become hardened ground, incapable of holding rainwater. He couldn't penetrate the ground with a shovel.
Using his knowledge and research in agroforestry and regenerative agriculture, Stennes took a bold approach to restoring soil health and bringing back biodiversity to the fields.
In the first season, he stopped 100 years of corn and soybean rotation and chemical spraying, and planted fields with native cover crops, to draw the last earth-toxic Glyphosate herbicide residue from the ground. The goal was to return the neglected land to rich, fertile fields of soft soil for growing produce to sell locally.
"Standing in a farm field with mud boots on, realizing the potential to grow real food for the local communities instead of selling corn and soy for pennies, made an immediate impact on me", Stennes said. "I'm experienced in this, but until I was standing in our own field, I didn't fully grasp how much American farmland grows corn and soybeans just for ethanol, diesel, and animal feed. We don't eat the food grown in these fields. It was time to change it", he said.
The process of farm research and learning led Stennes to study 3 critical things in American farming. 1) Sustainability in food production 2) The damage of chemical inputs to farms, to our food supply, and the dramatic increases in human health problems associated with food. 3) The health of the planet, and our need to feed far more people in the future.
With their Wisconsin farm located a long drive from their Minneapolis home, they sold the farm, and David’s lifetime of work to create Arcola Farms began.
Arcola Farms is proud to lead the way in healing our planet.
The podcast episode that founded our work to grow food without chemical inputs, below.
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