> If you’re going to survive on a garden, you won’t be eating meat.
I'd recommend at least raising chickens, for the eggs, poop, and some meat. I would also add a couple geese to help defend the chickens. Rabbits are an option, too--they taste great, they fertilize the ground, and their pelts are useful.
Venison (deer meat) is another healthy addition, and because we humans have squashed wolf populations across North America it is our responsibility to either promote wolf recovery, do what wolves do (selectively kill deer), or both. Deer overpopulation leads to disease (as in urban rabbit populations, too) and changes in the land (see what the reintroduction of wolves did in Yellowstone National Park--beavers might have been critically important there, too).
Whatever environment you find yourself in, do what you can to increase the biodiversity of the nearby land. If the fungi and plants are part of the local web (and not some useless decorative or parasitic thing) they will confer increased resilience as climate changes (might carefully consider introducing quasi-local lifeforms depending on what the likely changes will be). Swapping grass lawns for a perennial mix of native prairie plants, for example, will bring more pollinators and smell/sound/look nice. Dandelions don't go back thousands of years in Washington state (that I'm aware of) but unlike daisies they are both edible (root, leaf, and flower) and minimally invasive.
In any case, tweak things so that nothing burns out; keep few enough chickens so they don't turn the ground to bare dirt, for example. Might need to cooperate extensively with neighbors.
I have a handful of old back-to-the-land-era books from the 70s, and for protein the most compelling way I've seen it recommended is to create a fish pond and have ducks. That will set you up with meat and eggs! The traditional Vietnamese style of farming[1] seems to provide full nutrition needs in a compact space, and it's based on that model. It should provide all the needs on as small as .5 acres (and has been successfully proven for many years and many people!)
Common wisdom in the 70s was 2 acres (8000 sq m) to support a family of 4 with a healthy diet from a diverse and robust selection of crops in a temperate climate. Apples, potatoes, corn/maize, wheat, beans, and fill in the rest as you wish.
You could do something similar with aquaponics as well. Plants eat the fish excrement, and the fish eat something that lives on waste like roaches or crickets. Maybe even some kind of shrimp, if you can get enough sunlight for a lot of algae.
It does require electricity, although you could maybe get around that by having rain catchers up high to create a natural gradient and supplementing that by manually pumping water up into the reservoirs.
the amount of labour required; the cropping capacity of the land is not inexhautible, and must be borrowed from elsewhere [fertiliter] if you use the same land for succesive crops.
if average human lives 70 years thats 70 crop years times acreage of 1-2acres required. either the same piece of land is farmed and reamended 70 times or location changes periodically when a piece of land becomes crop barren.
certain crops such as corn will decimate the soil content, and have to be grown in rotation with soy or others
I wish there were more people doing this with hydroponics or aeroponics, because gardening in dirt is super inefficient in terms of water and space usage. You also have to worry about yields, pests, and crop failures, which can be totally negated in a controlled environment. With GMOs (Perhaps with crops that are engineered to use more efficient C4 photosynthesis), and a finely tuned system, I imagine a person could survive on 500 square ft. or less.
choosing what you grow would be incredibly important. I've calculated the yield of most vegetables and fruits per square foot and I can tell you there's quite a bit of variability. At the top of the list you have Cassava, Yuca, Sweet potatoes, potatoes and surprisingly: Sunflowers. Dont forget about sunflowers. first of all, sunflowers grow up and thus take up vertical space instead of horizontal space. what makes them so incredibly high yield is this one thing most gardeners overlook: Most vegetables and fruits have a caloric density of about 0.2 to 0.8 with potatoes being 0.8. Sunflowers, as a seed are 5.7 cals per gram because their mostly fat! So, you get 10 times the yield per gram for sunflower seeds than fruits and veggies. And, even better, sunflowers are actually very dense with minerals and vitamins. And, not only that, but sunflowers can pass mustard with even the most greedy HOAs as most people consider sunflowers decoration and not food.
Another way to calculate yield would be based on the amount of time or water it takes to grow each thing.
Also, don't overestimate protein. People don't know because it's never marketed but actually, the vast majority of plant based foods already contain quite a bit of protein in them, much more than you need to survive. I've done a bunch of calculations already about the amount of protein per 200 cals or 3000 cals: https://kale.world/very-highest-protein-foods-from-each-food...
I like how the article just hand waves away the 4,000 sq. ft. figure by saying "but you probably don’t need quite that much as long as you’re efficient" like somehow magically you can make it work in 200 sq. ft.
Article says that gurus think you need 4000 sq ft per person but then article changes tunes and, without citation, it says you need only 200 sq ft per person.
Let’s calculate ourselves. Currently 50M km^2 of land is used for agriculture. Divide that by world population and we get 76000 sq ft per person.
You don't cite your source for how much land is used for agriculture (and what definition of agriculture you're using). Are you sure this doesn't include land used for growing specifically feed crops and crops to make food oils, wheat, etc.?
I am willing to bet that there are a lot of variables that math doesn't calculate for, such as mass farming inefficiencies that can be accommodated for by small-family farming, monoculture crop dominance, space for heavy machinery and food storage, and what agriculture we're talking about (as, for instance, the corn grown for conversion into ethanol or high fructose corn syrup isn't always the same kind of corn grown for human consumption, or hay and other grains grown to feed cattle, sheep, pigs, and chickens).
There are also extra inefficiencies due to greenhouses, orchards and the like that take up a lot of space for little resultant plant matter, and I don't know if you checked but if that figure accounts for cattle grazing that in addition to needing land for food to be grown for them also requires land for them to occupy and live in until they are slaughtered.
I'm not saying you're wrong, just more that your figure puts a minimal upper bound on the amount of land needed to feed a human rather than placing a minimal lower bound on it.
For example, grains are so fundamental to human survival in large part due to the fact that it can be stored over multiple years/seasons. Try doing that with potatoes.
A root cellar though can keep potatoes through the off-season. Not multi-year disruption resistant but probably practical if your climate allows it. Also can be done space efficiently with a stacking planter.
This is one of those endeavors where you think you know something until you really try it (and I mean really try, not just grow a few things), and then you find most of it turns out to be the opposite of conventional wisdom.
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[ 5.3 ms ] story [ 65.4 ms ] threadI'd recommend at least raising chickens, for the eggs, poop, and some meat. I would also add a couple geese to help defend the chickens. Rabbits are an option, too--they taste great, they fertilize the ground, and their pelts are useful.
Venison (deer meat) is another healthy addition, and because we humans have squashed wolf populations across North America it is our responsibility to either promote wolf recovery, do what wolves do (selectively kill deer), or both. Deer overpopulation leads to disease (as in urban rabbit populations, too) and changes in the land (see what the reintroduction of wolves did in Yellowstone National Park--beavers might have been critically important there, too).
Whatever environment you find yourself in, do what you can to increase the biodiversity of the nearby land. If the fungi and plants are part of the local web (and not some useless decorative or parasitic thing) they will confer increased resilience as climate changes (might carefully consider introducing quasi-local lifeforms depending on what the likely changes will be). Swapping grass lawns for a perennial mix of native prairie plants, for example, will bring more pollinators and smell/sound/look nice. Dandelions don't go back thousands of years in Washington state (that I'm aware of) but unlike daisies they are both edible (root, leaf, and flower) and minimally invasive.
In any case, tweak things so that nothing burns out; keep few enough chickens so they don't turn the ground to bare dirt, for example. Might need to cooperate extensively with neighbors.
[1] https://www.permaculturenews.org/2008/10/04/vuon-ao-chuong-t...
It does require electricity, although you could maybe get around that by having rain catchers up high to create a natural gradient and supplementing that by manually pumping water up into the reservoirs.
the amount of labour required; the cropping capacity of the land is not inexhautible, and must be borrowed from elsewhere [fertiliter] if you use the same land for succesive crops.
if average human lives 70 years thats 70 crop years times acreage of 1-2acres required. either the same piece of land is farmed and reamended 70 times or location changes periodically when a piece of land becomes crop barren.
certain crops such as corn will decimate the soil content, and have to be grown in rotation with soy or others
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/622637/the-encyclop...
https://www.amazon.com/Self-Sufficient-Gardener-Complete-Gro...
Another way to calculate yield would be based on the amount of time or water it takes to grow each thing.
Also, don't overestimate protein. People don't know because it's never marketed but actually, the vast majority of plant based foods already contain quite a bit of protein in them, much more than you need to survive. I've done a bunch of calculations already about the amount of protein per 200 cals or 3000 cals: https://kale.world/very-highest-protein-foods-from-each-food...
You can't.
Let’s calculate ourselves. Currently 50M km^2 of land is used for agriculture. Divide that by world population and we get 76000 sq ft per person.
There are also extra inefficiencies due to greenhouses, orchards and the like that take up a lot of space for little resultant plant matter, and I don't know if you checked but if that figure accounts for cattle grazing that in addition to needing land for food to be grown for them also requires land for them to occupy and live in until they are slaughtered.
I'm not saying you're wrong, just more that your figure puts a minimal upper bound on the amount of land needed to feed a human rather than placing a minimal lower bound on it.
200 bu/acre yield for corn/maize nowadays, so
25 people supported by an acre of industrial agriculture.
43560 sq ft in an acre.
Intensive dirt farming would require 2000 sq ft/person, at a minimum, fudging up for protein and nutrients. Looks like a decimal error on their part.
For example, grains are so fundamental to human survival in large part due to the fact that it can be stored over multiple years/seasons. Try doing that with potatoes.
https://perudelicias.com/chuno-freeze-dried-potatoes/
Never tried it myself.