Graduate students will soon have a posh new home in the Munger Graduate Residences, courtesy of the largest gift ever earmarked for University housing, but the building project comes with a price: the loss of the Stanford Community Farm, a one-acre plot on West Campus where Stanford affiliates grow everything from roses to tomatoes.

Due to building regulations that prohibit the University from moving dirt from construction sites off campus, dirt from the Munger project — located behind Wilbur Hall and supported largely by a $43.5 million donation from Charles and Nancy Munger ‘45 — has been deposited on land surrounding the Community Farm, and this pile of dirt has created a host of ecological problems for the farmers.

Money, aesthetics, political correctness and increasing pressure on the University to demonstrate its commitment to environmental sustainability all play a part in the drama.

The Physical Effects

Community farmers Steve Masley — a 23-year employee of the Biology Copy Center and an organic farmer for 20 years — and Michael Bachmann, a research associate in the Department of Pediatrics, expressed their frustration in interviews with The Daily.

Director of Environmental Planning Charles Carter told The Daily last fall that there were “no significant stakeholders” in the area covered by the debris. Masley noted that Carter ignored the Community Farm in his comments.

“In the same interview,” Masley said, “[Carter] said that earth-moving activities haven’t directly impacted the Farm. He is wrong.”

Carter did not respond to calls seeking comment.

The biggest problems from the dirt are an increasing squirrel population and the loss of beneficial insects. According to Masley, the most detrimental effects of the dirt pile are “the topographical changes caused by depositing all that construction debris all around the farm.”

Construction debris has raised the grade around the site, he said, creating an artificial basin, where cold water and cold air collect, causing further problems such as frozen pipes.

Bachmann said the physical effects are actually a secondary concern.

“What matters more has been the psychosocial effect,” he said. “The farm community does not matter to the University, even though the founding document states that ‘instruction in Agriculture and all its branches’ should be maintained.”

Lack of Communication

Masley said that communication with the University at the project’s onset was “non-existent.”

He did admit, however, that “part of the fault lies with the farm community, which has been very disorganized in the past.”

Masley noted that there has been a “slight improvement” in communication with the University since Dean of Earth Systems Pamela Matson joined the project. The complaints of alumni farmers have also forced the University to respond to the situation.

Despite the farmers’ concerns, Matson said the farm’s problems stem from several issues, only one of which involves the Munger project.

“I have not been involved in the Community Farm directly,” she said, declining to “confirm or elaborate” on any of the issues.

“For what’s it worth, the problems that I’ve heard the Community Farm is experiencing seem to me to be connected to other land management decisions made in the vicinity of the farm,” she added. “Such decisions could have been made even without the Munger project.”

Bachmann said the fundamental problem is a result of the lack of communication.

“The point, at least from the farm community’s perspective, should be that no matter what land management decisions were made, we were simply not involved,” he said, “treated as if we did not exist or did not matter.”

Masley said he was not optimistic about the farm’s chances in the face of the Munger project.

“Like everything else at Stanford, it all boils down to money and influence,” he said, “and in a contest between billionaire donors and farmers, we will not be heard.”

The Future of the Farm

The farm — located at the end of Searsville Road — is a far cry from the manicured lawns of the rest of campus. The dilapidated cream-colored greenhouse is not operational, and the farmers lack the money to fix it.

“We’re not even operating on a shoestring budget,” Bachmann said. “Ours is more like a dental-floss budget.”

Bachmann said that farmers envision “an educational center at the farm where students could learn about the local bioregion and its ecology and about sustainable food production,” though he said it likely will not happen without a “critical mass of support within the Stanford community.”

In the meantime, though, farmers continue to stake tomatoes and tend to sweet peas, despite the constant thrum of bulldozers from across the fence.

“In the ancient days, this is the kind of place where you would build a philosophy school and bring people to learn,” Bachmann said. “And if you can tune out that bulldozer there, and focus on the shade and the birds ... think about it. This place is almost like paradise.”