About
The Farmer
Dennis discovered the importance of quality food and responsible farming while traveling an assortment of wild places from trails and seas to cities. His whole life, Dennis has greatly valued time spent in nature and decided to dig deep with farming as his vocation after traveling the world for a few years and departing his past mechanical engineering career. His mission is to live connected to nature both through outdoor recreation and as a steward of the land through farming – nourishing people and the planet through a holistic approach.
With previous farming experience at Frith Farm in Maine and Ridge to Reef Farm in St. Croix, Dennis has now returned to Fort Collins to start Belafonte Farm. After some initial setup at Belafonte Farm, he will practice organic, no-till, human scale methods, and continuously develop the farm to become an acre of delicious food production!
Dennis enjoys each season but wishes there was a way to have double summers to farm and hike a long-distance trail all in the same year, either way, you will find him happily covered in soil!
The Land
Belafonte Farm operates on leased land at two locations. The primary farm location is south of Vine between North Taft Hill Road and North Shields Street in Fort Collins and the original farm location is at the Flores del Sol Natural Area as part of the Northern Colorado Foodshed Project’s Accelerator Program which supports beginning farmers.
Flores del Sol is a natural area owned by the City of Fort Collins and leased to Poudre Valley Community Farms, a Land Cooperative with the vision of creating community supported farmland as they create connections to ensure affordable, long-term access to farmland in the Poudre Valley community.
The Name
For all those who know him, Dennis enjoys referencing movies, songs, quotes and the like, so naturally, the farm name was born one night while watching Wes Anderson’s The Life Aquatic at a friends house while on a road trip looking for farmland. To Dennis the film has become a movie about hope and a chance to mend damaged past relationships – not unlike how he views a significant portion of our current agriculture system. Therefore, Belafonte Farm is the first step for Dennis towards cultivating a practice to better co-exist with nature through agriculture – the name also has a loose tie to his desire to sail around the world!
The design on the side is a homage to one of the most important foods globally, rice and one crop Dennis is excited to grow at the farm this year!