{"id":169103,"date":"2010-01-12T03:01:06","date_gmt":"2010-01-12T08:01:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stanforddaily.com\/cgi-bin\/?p=1036967"},"modified":"2010-01-12T03:01:06","modified_gmt":"2010-01-12T08:01:06","slug":"not-a-garden-a-farm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/169103","title":{"rendered":"Not a garden, a farm"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\"Students<\/p>\n

Students tend the current community farm on campus, which Briana Swette \u201810 described as a \u201cbig garden.\u201d A proposal to establish a two-acre farm is currently under review. (KATHRYN ROETHEL\/The Stanford Daily)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Proposal calls for new two-acre farm on the Farm<\/h3>\n

On Nov. 17, a handful of student farmers gathered in Old Union and quietly began to sow the seeds of a small green revolution. The students discussed a proposal to build a new, bigger farm on campus–a plan that may become a reality if approved by the University Architect and Campus Planning Office.<\/p>\n

The proposal, submitted to the provost nearly three months ago by Pamela Matson, Dean of the School of Earth Sciences, called for the establishment of a two-acre farm alongside Campus Drive, at the end of Santa Teresa Street. Students and faculty will use the farm for education, but they also hope to put homegrown produce in Stanford\u2019s dining halls.<\/p>\n

Christ Carter, Director of Land Use and Environmental Planning, told The Daily in an e-mail, \u201cThe proposal…will be considered along with a number of other potential uses and development in an updated area plan for that part of campus.\u201d<\/p>\n

He expects that the Land Use and Real Estate Department will present a recommendation about the project to Provost John Etchemendy within the first half of 2010.<\/p>\n

The current community farm on campus is not particularly conducive to student projects or large-scale production with only one-eighth of an acre allocated to undergraduate farming. According to Farm Educator Sarah Wiederkehr, the current space is not large enough and can only accommodate a few dozen student plots.<\/p>\n

\u201c[The current community farm is] basically a big garden,\u201d said Briana Swette \u201810, who has helped out there ever since she took a sustainable agriculture class her freshman year.<\/p>\n

Swette, one of the leaders of Farmers and Eaters for Equality and Diversity (FEED), said the new farm will have room for a greenhouse, tool shed, tractor and, most importantly, much more cropland for education and production.<\/p>\n

Emily Bookstein \u201811 is another aspiring farmer who leads the food and agriculture division of Students for a Sustainable Stanford (SSS).<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m really looking forward to the farm as a way to delve into agricultural education,\u201d she said. Bookstein also mentioned that a new farm could help reconnect Stanford students and community members with the means of food production.<\/p>\n

For Swette, the visibility of the new farm will help achieve this goal.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing able to see this farm is huge,\u201d she said. \u201cHaving a farm on campus will help bring farming to the mainstream and it reminds our community that farming is an intellectual livelihood.\u201d<\/p>\n

Swette and Bookstein were not alone in their enthusiasm. This quarter, Wiederkehr had to turn 35 students away from EARTHSYS 180: Fundamentals of Sustainable Agriculture, even after opening a second section. Some of the rejected students opted to do independent projects on the farm instead.<\/p>\n

Wiederkehr said the maintenance of such student commitment is essential for the success of a new farm.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my experience [Stanford students] tend to bite off more than they can chew,\u201d Wiederkehr said. \u201cThat could be the biggest hurdle. That and the ground squirrels.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, Matson said that the new farm\u2019s primary goal will be to foster student research, not to provide campus with food. She envisions students developing projects on the new farm to investigate nutrient cycling, hydrology, compost, water holding and farm systems.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe farm has tremendous potential to be a model farm in terms of ecological practices,\u201d Bookstein said.<\/p>\n

As they await the provost\u2019s decision, some students and staff have already moved forward toward farm preparations. Financial planning is underway to raise money for land development, soil conditioning and equipment. They hope to break ground by fall 2010.<\/p>\n

Bookstein hopes to spend this summer helping any way she can. She believes that, once underway, the farm will be a valuable and essential asset of the Stanford campus.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo literally see how food is produced–that is something that will stick with you,\u201d she said. \u201cWhen Stanford graduates are scattered across the world, they\u2019ll have that little seed of the Stanford Farm to carry with them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Students tend the current community farm on campus, which Briana Swette \u201810 described as a \u201cbig garden.\u201d A proposal to establish a two-acre farm is currently under review. (KATHRYN ROETHEL\/The Stanford Daily) Proposal calls for new two-acre farm on the Farm On Nov. 17, a handful of student farmers gathered in Old Union and quietly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-169103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169103\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}