4 ms·
Legal access, not physical. If you don't buy or rent land, you cannot farm it. A small amount of capital would be required to get a subsistence farm up-and-goin
by squish78 7y ago
Legal access, not physical. If you don't buy or rent land, you cannot farm it. A small amount of capital would be required to get a subsistence farm up-and-going when historically it was community of family land without all of the modern legal ownership and tax concerns. I am merely trying to present a thought experiment of:
Would it be a better life as:
A) an impoverished person with land and the ability to grow food
B) an impoverished person living in a car or on the streets relying on low-wage jobs or begging.
- Kalium 7y agoI would go so far as to guess that gaining both legal and physical access to land that could be used for subsistence farming is not excessively difficult. There are a number of areas of the US where various government entities offer land on the condition that you do something productive with it. You may find that the choice becomes one between: A) an impoverished person with land and the ability to grow food, without knowledge or experience of doing such in a marginal, unpopulated, and isolated area B) an impoverished person living in a car or on the streets relying on low-wage jobs or begging who values being in an urban area
- nradov 7y agoWhere specifically are those areas where the government will give free fertile land to farmers? In most of the country, farm land goes for at least $8000 per acre. If any was actually available for free, existing farmers would happily take it and use it productively.
- Kalium 7y agoThere's a vast difference between land that is fertile for commercial purposes and land that can be used to eke out a subsistence farmer's living. The former needs, among other things, access to a fair amount of commercial infrastructure. The latter does not, and is useful to feed one person at crop densities well below what would be commerically viable. Also, $8000 per person would be far less than government entities in the US spend supporting the homeless.
- nradov 7y agoHow much farming have you done? If there is arable land somewhere (other than a protected park) then the infrastructure will get built. In any case it's going to take a lot more than $8000 to get a small subsistence farm going. I'm still waiting for your list of free farm land.