6 ms·

Hopefully this may incentivize people to be a bit more self-sufficient. Gardens that you grow your own, allotments - the mentality of that has been driven away

by Zenst 7y ago

Hopefully this may incentivize people to be a bit more self-sufficient. Gardens that you grow your own, allotments - the mentality of that has been driven away over decades and now people are starting to smell the roses and realize they can't eat them. So in many avenues - complacency gets highlighted more and I'm sure many and much will change on the back of this period in time. Overall I'd say for the better. Certainly the environment is doing better, so not all side-effects that bad, but even the bad ones, may well get exacerbated and become fear/panic driven. Equally many manual aspects of farming have long been on the verge of better automation and with that, robots. However that drive will only see less people working and the knock-on effects of any change has ripples. But let's not overlook the whole import/export aspects and SPain for example exports a huge amount of fruit and veg, how that pans out over this period will be of note. But for some perspective: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/-/EDN-20171016-1?inheritRedirect=true https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/-/E... Shows the export and import of food in EUrope as a whole is somewhat balanced. How that balance plays out this year and for few years after will be interesting. Though I don't see any fear of food shortages, sure may be case of some food items being more expensive. But such articles, whilst are a caution warning, they themselves can drive fear and panic and they as always do more damage as any toilet roll can attest. [EDIT spellings and grams]

alexandernst 7y ago
Where (physically) do you expect 500.000 (a small town example) people garden their own food? They'd need to travel outside town, garden, then get back (and all this while also commuting to work on a daily basis). Also, the amount of tools every single person would need to buy. "Decentralisation" is a goof idea, but not feasible in the real world, IMHO. And this is a small town example, leave alone a huge capital like Madrid or Barcelona.
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  Surrounding farmland, greenhouses if necessary. Can't scale now, but this is the result of fragile ag supply chains. Lessons for the future. Not just ag, manufacturing capacity and black swan preparedness in general. Fragile systems break more easily. Make sturdy systems humans rely on, even if more costly and less efficient.
- HarryHirsch 7y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allotment_(gardening) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allotment_(gardening) In Britain and Germany, allotment gardening was promoted as a social measure and by all accounts it was successful.
  - yorwba 7y ago
    It's successful at giving people the option to occasionally put some fresh produce on their plates. It's not enough to keep yourself fed all year round, let alone your family or everyone else who doesn't have an allotment. If an acute food shortage hit right during harvest season I might be able to hold out for a few weeks, but any other time of year would be pretty bad.
    - pvaldes 7y ago
      > It's not enough to keep yourself fed all year round In 2019 I produced almost 300 Kg of my own food at home without really trying hard, so maybe not all year round, but is possible to notice a difference. The garden had provided me with at least a piece of fresh fruit each day of 2020 and this point is covered until june-2020 at least. The problem is trying to obtain your food without space, without feeding your plants, and relying in magical products. This never works as intended. People needs to understand also that producing food at home is more expensive (but the quality is better).
  - pjc50 7y ago
    Possibly too successful. The waiting lists are usually very long: https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/edinburgh-allotment-shortfall-means-plot-waiting-list-12-years-256061 https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/edinburgh-allotm...
- yellowbeard 7y ago
  Tools can be shared. It's also amazing how little land is needed to grow enough food to live on. One person can be fed from around 9 square meters. In dense cities people may not have that much land, but in many areas, people do have that much land in their yards.
  - thedance 7y ago
    That's preposterous. You need 5-10 acres to be self-sufficient in the steady state.
  - GordonS 7y ago
    Do you have a source that the 9sqm claim? It seems... completely unbelievable. My wife's parents grow various vegetables in an area of that size, and there is no way it could provide all their vegetable needs.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - cma 7y ago
      If you grew potatoes you’d get 15000-45000 calories out of 9 sq meters. Not enough. 9mX9m (81sqm) and at the high end of yield you could get above starvation.
      - GordonS 7y ago
        At least in the UK, I thought you could only harvest potatoes once a year? There is a 2-week school holiday in October, which in some parts of Scotland are still referred to as the "tattie holidays", because that's when the potatoes are harvested (I did it as a kid, it was back-breaking work...).
- war1025 7y ago
  Did you honestly just call half a million people a small town? That is a major metro in many parts of the world.
- ghaff 7y ago
  Your idea of a "small town" has the population of Sacramento or Atlanta (and almost the population of Frankfurt, if you prefer Europe). I live in what would reasonably be considered a small town in the northeast US outside a major metro. The population of our town is about 7,000 people. (And most people would have the room for respectable garden.)
- gdubs 7y ago
  Every bit counts and even on a small balcony it’s possible to at least grow fresh herbs and a few other things in pots and containers. There’s also the indoor microgreen approach. There have been some cool prototypes that look about the size of a mini fridge and can grow a decent amount of fresh salad greens.
groby_b 7y ago
This is a very naive take on the world. You'll need at the very least half an acre to feed yourself sustainably, and that's if you're highly optimized. It's also backbreaking work, and you won't be able to do much else except subsistence farming. In short, it's not practical for the vast majority of the population. The closest we can probably get to this model is instead CSA memberships, supporting farms right outside the dense urban areas which can leverage economies of scale to feed several hundred people. I mean, sure, grow your spring onions, your herbs, and a tomato plant. It's nice. It keeps you connected to where food comes from. It's a yummy addition to your plate. It won't feed you in an emergency, though.
- makomk 7y ago
  Note that it's fine to leave the supply of staples like wheat to large farmers with economies of scale, since that's heavily mechanized and doesn't require many workers, plus the workers it does rely on can be fairly effectively distanced. It's mostly the stuff like fresh fruit and vegetables which is the problem. Those are less reliant on economies of scale and more on cheap imported labour.
  - Zenst 7y ago
    Exactly, I grew tomatoes in my flat few years back, was so choice picking a ripe tomato on christmas day grown indoors on a window ledge and no additional lighting needed. Sure can't grow it all, but certainly makes a positive dent in my needs.
    - GordonS 7y ago
      Yikes, you grew tomatoes indoors? How did you stand the smell?
      - Zenst 7y ago
        Was not an issue at all.
- Zenst 7y ago
pascalxus 7y ago
It's sad, but here in CA, most people don't have yards and there's nowhere to grow food. It's especially dumb because there's miles and miles of undeveloped land everywhere (at least in the east bay suberbs), not being used for anything in particular except maybe some farms with cows on it: I'm sure they're taking advantage of huge tax wholes because they're sitting on land that would cost 10s of millions of dollars in property taxes were it taxed at the same rate that people need to pay. Also, there's no community compost which means people need to buy all of it at stores like home depot, making it expensive because they have to bag it and warehouse it, etc. The nearest compost I have to my house where I can get compost is nearly 35 miles away.
- Zenst 7y ago
  I live in a flat, it has windows and window ledges and I grow things - sure not enough to sustain, but makes a dent in the right direction, also helps flats air quality. As for compost, i'm supprised as I live in London and can easily get it. But appreciate that it may be a case of supply/demand and if no demand, the supply moves away. Seems like an opportunity business wise in the times ahead as if you have that issue - many others will.
- sologoub 7y ago
  SF Bay Area is not really representative of California as a whole. Most people outside of the dense cores have a place for a small garden. State is large and diverse. Los Angeles is a lot less dense and most people have at least a balcony on which you can grow stuff in pots. Won’t sustain you as the only source, but will provide greens and some variety. Yards are pretty common and usually green. Water shortages have led to some converting to hardscape, but that can be reversed. Prop 13 is an issue, but the level of development opposition in Bay Area is another matter all together compared to the rest of the state. Where little you can build developers end up cramming every last inch with profit-producing structures. Couple with crappy commuting infrastructure and you have what we are living.
  - pascalxus 7y ago
    You can drive out as far as fairfield, about 70 miles outside of the bay area and still see housing communities packed together like slums with nothing but yellow and green for miles in every direction.
downshun 7y ago
> incentivize people to be a bit more self-sufficient The drawback to this is the opportunity cost. Comparative advantage is the benefit of the current set-up. Although 'self-sufficient' may sound warm and nice.
mellow2020 7y ago
> Certainly the environment is doing better, I wouldn't be so sure (yet) about the overall outcome. For example, the EPA just suspends enforcement of all environmental laws "because corona". https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/489753-epa-suspends-enforcement-of-environmental-laws-amid-coronavirus https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/489753-epa-sus... > The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a sweeping suspension of its enforcement of environmental laws Thursday, telling companies they would not need to meet environmental standards during the coronavirus outbreak. > The temporary policy, for which the EPA has set no end date, would allow any number of industries to skirt environmental laws, with the agency saying it will not “seek penalties for noncompliance with routine monitoring and reporting obligations.”
- abootstrapper 7y ago
  I really don’t get this. How is this helpful against the pandemic?
  - pvaldes 7y ago
    What? No more illegal pangolin for dinner?.
    - abootstrapper 7y ago
      Honest question. How is the EPA suspending enforcement aid in the fight against Covid-19?
      - tlb 7y ago
        The EPA says not only that your new chemical plant can't dump waste in the river, but also that before you even start your factory you have to file elaborate plans explaining all the measures you're going to take to make sure it never happens. If we want companies to quickly spin up new factories for ventilators and masks, it's a good idea to let them start the factory now and file the plans next year.
2ion 7y ago
> Hopefully this may incentivize people to be a bit more self-sufficient This has nothing to do with "people". Securing the food supply is a matter of national security, which is why such a shortage of labour should have never been allowed to even happen. The correct way to go about this would have been subsidized pay for local farmhands, a directive that a given / high percentage of food crop must be preserved at any cost and regulation that subsidies that already go to agriculture do not go into profits but actually trickle down.

by Zenst 7y ago

alexandernst 7y ago

Where (physically) do you expect 500.000 (a small town example) people garden their own food? They'd need to travel outside town, garden, then get back (and all this while also commuting to work on a daily basis). Also, the amount of tools every single person would need to buy. "Decentralisation" is a goof idea, but not feasible in the real world, IMHO. And this is a small town example, leave alone a huge capital like Madrid or Barcelona.

toomuchtodo 7y ago
Surrounding farmland, greenhouses if necessary. Can't scale now, but this is the result of fragile ag supply chains. Lessons for the future. Not just ag, manufacturing capacity and black swan preparedness in general. Fragile systems break more easily. Make sturdy systems humans rely on, even if more costly and less efficient.
HarryHirsch 7y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allotment_(gardening) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allotment_(gardening) In Britain and Germany, allotment gardening was promoted as a social measure and by all accounts it was successful.
- yorwba 7y ago
  It's successful at giving people the option to occasionally put some fresh produce on their plates. It's not enough to keep yourself fed all year round, let alone your family or everyone else who doesn't have an allotment. If an acute food shortage hit right during harvest season I might be able to hold out for a few weeks, but any other time of year would be pretty bad.
  - pvaldes 7y ago
    > It's not enough to keep yourself fed all year round In 2019 I produced almost 300 Kg of my own food at home without really trying hard, so maybe not all year round, but is possible to notice a difference. The garden had provided me with at least a piece of fresh fruit each day of 2020 and this point is covered until june-2020 at least. The problem is trying to obtain your food without space, without feeding your plants, and relying in magical products. This never works as intended. People needs to understand also that producing food at home is more expensive (but the quality is better).
- pjc50 7y ago
  Possibly too successful. The waiting lists are usually very long: https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/edinburgh-allotment-shortfall-means-plot-waiting-list-12-years-256061 https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/edinburgh-allotm...
yellowbeard 7y ago
Tools can be shared. It's also amazing how little land is needed to grow enough food to live on. One person can be fed from around 9 square meters. In dense cities people may not have that much land, but in many areas, people do have that much land in their yards.
- thedance 7y ago
  That's preposterous. You need 5-10 acres to be self-sufficient in the steady state.
- GordonS 7y ago
  Do you have a source that the 9sqm claim? It seems... completely unbelievable. My wife's parents grow various vegetables in an area of that size, and there is no way it could provide all their vegetable needs.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - cma 7y ago
    If you grew potatoes you’d get 15000-45000 calories out of 9 sq meters. Not enough. 9mX9m (81sqm) and at the high end of yield you could get above starvation.
    - GordonS 7y ago
      At least in the UK, I thought you could only harvest potatoes once a year? There is a 2-week school holiday in October, which in some parts of Scotland are still referred to as the "tattie holidays", because that's when the potatoes are harvested (I did it as a kid, it was back-breaking work...).
war1025 7y ago
Did you honestly just call half a million people a small town? That is a major metro in many parts of the world.
ghaff 7y ago
Your idea of a "small town" has the population of Sacramento or Atlanta (and almost the population of Frankfurt, if you prefer Europe). I live in what would reasonably be considered a small town in the northeast US outside a major metro. The population of our town is about 7,000 people. (And most people would have the room for respectable garden.)
gdubs 7y ago
Every bit counts and even on a small balcony it’s possible to at least grow fresh herbs and a few other things in pots and containers. There’s also the indoor microgreen approach. There have been some cool prototypes that look about the size of a mini fridge and can grow a decent amount of fresh salad greens.

groby_b 7y ago

This is a very naive take on the world. You'll need at the very least half an acre to feed yourself sustainably, and that's if you're highly optimized. It's also backbreaking work, and you won't be able to do much else except subsistence farming. In short, it's not practical for the vast majority of the population. The closest we can probably get to this model is instead CSA memberships, supporting farms right outside the dense urban areas which can leverage economies of scale to feed several hundred people. I mean, sure, grow your spring onions, your herbs, and a tomato plant. It's nice. It keeps you connected to where food comes from. It's a yummy addition to your plate. It won't feed you in an emergency, though.

makomk 7y ago
Note that it's fine to leave the supply of staples like wheat to large farmers with economies of scale, since that's heavily mechanized and doesn't require many workers, plus the workers it does rely on can be fairly effectively distanced. It's mostly the stuff like fresh fruit and vegetables which is the problem. Those are less reliant on economies of scale and more on cheap imported labour.
- Zenst 7y ago
  Exactly, I grew tomatoes in my flat few years back, was so choice picking a ripe tomato on christmas day grown indoors on a window ledge and no additional lighting needed. Sure can't grow it all, but certainly makes a positive dent in my needs.
  - GordonS 7y ago
    Yikes, you grew tomatoes indoors? How did you stand the smell?
    - Zenst 7y ago
      Was not an issue at all.
Zenst 7y ago

pascalxus 7y ago

It's sad, but here in CA, most people don't have yards and there's nowhere to grow food. It's especially dumb because there's miles and miles of undeveloped land everywhere (at least in the east bay suberbs), not being used for anything in particular except maybe some farms with cows on it: I'm sure they're taking advantage of huge tax wholes because they're sitting on land that would cost 10s of millions of dollars in property taxes were it taxed at the same rate that people need to pay. Also, there's no community compost which means people need to buy all of it at stores like home depot, making it expensive because they have to bag it and warehouse it, etc. The nearest compost I have to my house where I can get compost is nearly 35 miles away.

Zenst 7y ago
I live in a flat, it has windows and window ledges and I grow things - sure not enough to sustain, but makes a dent in the right direction, also helps flats air quality. As for compost, i'm supprised as I live in London and can easily get it. But appreciate that it may be a case of supply/demand and if no demand, the supply moves away. Seems like an opportunity business wise in the times ahead as if you have that issue - many others will.
sologoub 7y ago
SF Bay Area is not really representative of California as a whole. Most people outside of the dense cores have a place for a small garden. State is large and diverse. Los Angeles is a lot less dense and most people have at least a balcony on which you can grow stuff in pots. Won’t sustain you as the only source, but will provide greens and some variety. Yards are pretty common and usually green. Water shortages have led to some converting to hardscape, but that can be reversed. Prop 13 is an issue, but the level of development opposition in Bay Area is another matter all together compared to the rest of the state. Where little you can build developers end up cramming every last inch with profit-producing structures. Couple with crappy commuting infrastructure and you have what we are living.
- pascalxus 7y ago
  You can drive out as far as fairfield, about 70 miles outside of the bay area and still see housing communities packed together like slums with nothing but yellow and green for miles in every direction.

downshun 7y ago

> incentivize people to be a bit more self-sufficient The drawback to this is the opportunity cost. Comparative advantage is the benefit of the current set-up. Although 'self-sufficient' may sound warm and nice.

mellow2020 7y ago

> Certainly the environment is doing better, I wouldn't be so sure (yet) about the overall outcome. For example, the EPA just suspends enforcement of all environmental laws "because corona". https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/489753-epa-suspends-enforcement-of-environmental-laws-amid-coronavirus https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/489753-epa-sus... > The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a sweeping suspension of its enforcement of environmental laws Thursday, telling companies they would not need to meet environmental standards during the coronavirus outbreak. > The temporary policy, for which the EPA has set no end date, would allow any number of industries to skirt environmental laws, with the agency saying it will not “seek penalties for noncompliance with routine monitoring and reporting obligations.”

abootstrapper 7y ago
I really don’t get this. How is this helpful against the pandemic?
- pvaldes 7y ago
  What? No more illegal pangolin for dinner?.
  - abootstrapper 7y ago
    Honest question. How is the EPA suspending enforcement aid in the fight against Covid-19?
    - tlb 7y ago
      The EPA says not only that your new chemical plant can't dump waste in the river, but also that before you even start your factory you have to file elaborate plans explaining all the measures you're going to take to make sure it never happens. If we want companies to quickly spin up new factories for ventilators and masks, it's a good idea to let them start the factory now and file the plans next year.

2ion 7y ago

> Hopefully this may incentivize people to be a bit more self-sufficient This has nothing to do with "people". Securing the food supply is a matter of national security, which is why such a shortage of labour should have never been allowed to even happen. The correct way to go about this would have been subsidized pay for local farmhands, a directive that a given / high percentage of food crop must be preserved at any cost and regulation that subsidies that already go to agriculture do not go into profits but actually trickle down.