The O’Donohue Family Stanford Educational Farm “was the dream of students going back years,” according to Patrick Archie, the farm director. The six-acre plot, located across Campus Drive from the Stanford Golf Course, opened this fall, and it was almost 20 years of student and faculty planning and support in the making. Construction began in 2014, and the farm broke ground this September.
The farm provides experiential education through classes like “Principles and Practices of Sustainable Agriculture,” through a growing community of student, faculty and community volunteers and through research projects conducted on the property — like one to see which tomatoes grow best with the least amount of water. It is home to over 200 varieties of flowers, herbs, vegetables, field crops and fruit, and plans to harvest over 15,000 pounds of produce this year. Most of this will be served to students in dining halls, through a farm-to-campus program.
In the video above, we hear from Archie, facilities and production coordinators Rose Madden and William Chen, program coordinator Annie Shattuck, teaching assistant Maria Deloso, and bee rescue specialist Art Hall. The video also takes a closer look at what activities and responsibilities go on at the farm.
(Editor’s Note: Peninsula Press is a project of the Stanford Journalism Program.)
