Acania | Regenerative Farm & Living Soil Research Site in Helvetia, OR

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Everything starts with living soil.

What We Do At acania

We believe soil health is the foundation of resilient farms, nourishing food, and long-term well-being.

Acania is a 93-acre ecological farm in Helvetia, Oregon, where vegetable gardens, orchards, vineyards, and forest come together to grow food for our community. We care for the land through regenerative practices, exploring how living soil shapes plant vitality, food quality, and the long-term health of the ecosystem.

Care for land with careful observation through field trials and soil studies

We choose practices that build soil, increase biodiversity, and help us study the relationship between living soil, plant vitality, and food quality, with the goal of leaving the land more alive than we found it.

The Research

Growing food for our community

We grow for local restaurants, market customers, our farm team, and partners who care about flavor, transparency, and knowing the farm behind their food.

The Land

Who We Are

Stewards of the Soil

Calendula Salve

Sofia with a chicken

Bumblebee on Borage

Picking Sweet Alyssum

Chickens in the orchard

Planting Peppers

Sedum

Tending compost

Planting in the Vitiforest

Chickens

Vineyard

Seedlings in the greenhouse

The market garden

Fertilizing with Compost Tea

Chicken in the roost

Behind every harvest and every soil-health trial is a team of practitioners dedicated to leaving this land healthier than we found it.

From biophysicists and systems optimizers to craftsmen and soil managers, we are a family-led enterprise working side-by-side to study how the vitality of the soil shapes the vitality of people.

Acania is a place where the land and people thrive together.

We invite you to meet the students, stewards, and visionaries building a bridge between the microbes and the macrocosm.

The People

Learn about our roots and how our family history has shaped our work at Acania today.

Our Story

Learn about the philosophy and guiding principals behind our work.

Our Approach

Field Notes

Dispatches from the farm

Life at Acania

From Shoulder Pads to Muddy Boots

If you had told me forty years ago that one day I’d be writing about soil, I would have thought you were absolutely crazy.

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Regenerative Farming

Planting a Vitiforest

The Vitiforest began with a different curiosity. What if a vineyard were designed less as a controlled production surface and more as a habitat – an orchard of relationships, a living edge?

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