7 ms·

> My experience (over decades) is I couldn't sustain my family for a year on a 1-acre garden plot even if I had the time to work it intensively and used nothing

by durkie 6y ago

> My experience (over decades) is I couldn't sustain my family for a year on a 1-acre garden plot even if I had the time to work it intensively and used nothing but recycled organic byproduct (compost and, uh, other stuff) as fertilizer. I find this surprising. I help run an Atlanta-area non-profit that has a ~1 acre organic farm that donates everything it produces. For the year 2020 we have already donated 3120 lb / 1415 kg of food. We're not trying to produce a nutritionally complete output on the farm, but that's still ~70 lb / 31.7 kg of food a week on average.

f- 6y ago
Well, potato is one of the higher-calorie crops, and one pound contains around 350 calories. If you produce 3,120 lbs a year, that gives you about a million calories. Now, let's assume a family of three - an average person needs around 2,000 kcal a day. That's 2,000 * 365 * 3, or around 2,200,000 kcal a year. So, you come quite a bit short. And that's on a good year; you're gonna have bad years, too. Also a function of climate and soil. In the 19th century, settlers in the plains - Nebraska, Wyoming, etc - often couldn't make it work on 640 acres granted by the government. In contrast, there are eastern states where 20 acres would be more than enough. (Farming in the West is now much more viable thanks to deep wells and mechanical irrigation, but that's a capital-intensive and resource-intensive approach that works best at a scale.)
- owenversteeg 6y ago
  As pointed out downthread, you can indeed feed a family on one acre of land, and many people do actually do this. The problem with your math is that it assumes the 3k lb yield from gp comment is for potatoes. Your crop yield depends a lot on the crop. Aparently you can get between 10-30 tons of potatoes per acre (that range is from beginner yields to expert) which would be 7-21 million calories per year. Plenty of room, then, to grow a number of other crops to eat a balanced diet.
  - noir_lord 6y ago
    Potatoes (if you eat the skin) and milk would theoretically be a balanced diet, supplemented with fish/occasional meat it was pretty much the Irish diet pre-potato famine. Boring as hell after a while but it'd keep you alive.
    - bane 6y ago
      You can also get pretty complete with potatoes and oatmeal.
    - marzell 6y ago
      During the famine, ireland produced way more for/potatoes then it required to feed it's people; they were just taxed to all hell. Currently the US produces about twice the calories it requires. There are so many calories produced in forms of corn that the industry has made huge efforts to find new ways to use those calories (hfcs, ethanol, etc) in order to justify corn industry practices. The one liner is that we need to be able to feed the people, but obesity is at an all time high. People need more nutrition, not more calories.
      - bwilli123 6y ago
        Taxes were not the main contributory factor. "Ireland continued to export large quantities of food, primarily to Great Britain, during the blight. In cases such as livestock and butter, research suggests that exports may have actually increased during the Potato Famine. In 1847 alone, records indicate that commodities such as peas, beans, rabbits, fish and honey continued to be exported from Ireland, even as the Great Hunger ravaged the countryside." https://www.history.com/topics/immigration/irish-potato-famine https://www.history.com/topics/immigration/irish-potato-fami...
        marzell 6y ago
        Thanks for the clarification. I was actually meaning that they were being "taxed" in terms of food sent to the rest of the UK and not in terms of money. Even with the article you linked, it's not clear to me if "exports" means they were forced/taxed into sending food, or if they were willingly exporting food for money in lieu of eating... Or something else
- phkahler 6y ago
  You math is wrong. Way wrong. 70lb per week is 10 pounds per day. I'm not sure its feasible for a person to eat that much. Maybe a family could. Maybe.
  - nkurz 6y ago
    It's frequently claimed that the average Irish male just prior to the potato famine ate well over 10 lbs of potatoes per day: On a typical day in 1844, the average adult Irishman ate about 13 pounds of potatoes. At five potatoes to the pound, that’s 65 potatoes a day. The average for all men, women, and children was a more modest 9 pounds, or 45 potatoes. https://slate.com/culture/2001/03/putting-all-your-potatoes-in-one-basket.html https://slate.com/culture/2001/03/putting-all-your-potatoes-... While there are people who doubt these figures, eating 10 lbs of potatoes per day is definitely more plausible than your comment indicates.
    - ponker 6y ago
      This is kind of inconceivable to me. Is it because I’ve never done enough manual labor to eat 65 potatoes in a day? I can’t imagine even finding the time to cook and eat them.
      - nkurz 6y ago
        Arguing against the article, 1/5 lb is a pretty small potato. I just weighed a baseball sized potato I dug last week, and it was 7.5 oz (~1/2 lb, 200 g). So if you are picturing an average baked potato, it's probably only 30 potatoes per day. Which, granted, is still a lot. Cooking time doesn't strike me as a problem. Boiling 30 potatoes does take somewhat longer than boiling 1 potato because the mass is greater, but it's pretty much boil and forget. Also, the boiling can probably be done by one of those women or children who are only eating 10 potatoes a day!
      - silveroriole 6y ago
        And if the calorie count upthread is right, that’s 4550 calories per day purely from potato, not counting any added butter, milk, beans, meat etc! I know people did more manual labour back then, but something seems wrong with that figure.
- bane 6y ago
  Potatoes have great yield in terms of calorie per unit harvested. Other plants, not so much. Think about how much weight you might throw away with a pumpkin or a watermelon. I have some family members who devoted about an acre and a half to a mix of crops, squashes mostly as they grow the best where they live, and for a family of 5 still had to supplement their diet pretty significantly. At the same time, they ate more healthily than they ever had before, and often had too much of certain crops that they gave away or sold at the local farmer's market.
- ed25519FUUU 6y ago
  The magic valley in Idaho (named after its transformation) is a great example of this. Modern irrigation has turned what is naturally a high dessert climate into a food producing powerhouse.
jcampbell1 6y ago
My guess is your one acre of growing whatever you grow would feed about .6 people per year. A human consumes about 1M Kcals a year (accounting for meat as waste), and at best you can achieve 11M kcals per acre with corn or potatos. Beans yield about 6M and wheat 4M. My guess is you are growing and giving away about 600k kcals of roughage. 70lbs of tomatoes only has about 6000 kcal, so enough for one person for half a week.

by durkie 6y ago

f- 6y ago

Well, potato is one of the higher-calorie crops, and one pound contains around 350 calories. If you produce 3,120 lbs a year, that gives you about a million calories. Now, let's assume a family of three - an average person needs around 2,000 kcal a day. That's 2,000 * 365 * 3, or around 2,200,000 kcal a year. So, you come quite a bit short. And that's on a good year; you're gonna have bad years, too. Also a function of climate and soil. In the 19th century, settlers in the plains - Nebraska, Wyoming, etc - often couldn't make it work on 640 acres granted by the government. In contrast, there are eastern states where 20 acres would be more than enough. (Farming in the West is now much more viable thanks to deep wells and mechanical irrigation, but that's a capital-intensive and resource-intensive approach that works best at a scale.)

owenversteeg 6y ago
As pointed out downthread, you can indeed feed a family on one acre of land, and many people do actually do this. The problem with your math is that it assumes the 3k lb yield from gp comment is for potatoes. Your crop yield depends a lot on the crop. Aparently you can get between 10-30 tons of potatoes per acre (that range is from beginner yields to expert) which would be 7-21 million calories per year. Plenty of room, then, to grow a number of other crops to eat a balanced diet.
- noir_lord 6y ago
  Potatoes (if you eat the skin) and milk would theoretically be a balanced diet, supplemented with fish/occasional meat it was pretty much the Irish diet pre-potato famine. Boring as hell after a while but it'd keep you alive.
  - bane 6y ago
    You can also get pretty complete with potatoes and oatmeal.
  - marzell 6y ago
    During the famine, ireland produced way more for/potatoes then it required to feed it's people; they were just taxed to all hell. Currently the US produces about twice the calories it requires. There are so many calories produced in forms of corn that the industry has made huge efforts to find new ways to use those calories (hfcs, ethanol, etc) in order to justify corn industry practices. The one liner is that we need to be able to feed the people, but obesity is at an all time high. People need more nutrition, not more calories.
    - bwilli123 6y ago
      Taxes were not the main contributory factor. "Ireland continued to export large quantities of food, primarily to Great Britain, during the blight. In cases such as livestock and butter, research suggests that exports may have actually increased during the Potato Famine. In 1847 alone, records indicate that commodities such as peas, beans, rabbits, fish and honey continued to be exported from Ireland, even as the Great Hunger ravaged the countryside." https://www.history.com/topics/immigration/irish-potato-famine https://www.history.com/topics/immigration/irish-potato-fami...
      - marzell 6y ago
        Thanks for the clarification. I was actually meaning that they were being "taxed" in terms of food sent to the rest of the UK and not in terms of money. Even with the article you linked, it's not clear to me if "exports" means they were forced/taxed into sending food, or if they were willingly exporting food for money in lieu of eating... Or something else
phkahler 6y ago
You math is wrong. Way wrong. 70lb per week is 10 pounds per day. I'm not sure its feasible for a person to eat that much. Maybe a family could. Maybe.
- nkurz 6y ago
  It's frequently claimed that the average Irish male just prior to the potato famine ate well over 10 lbs of potatoes per day: On a typical day in 1844, the average adult Irishman ate about 13 pounds of potatoes. At five potatoes to the pound, that’s 65 potatoes a day. The average for all men, women, and children was a more modest 9 pounds, or 45 potatoes. https://slate.com/culture/2001/03/putting-all-your-potatoes-in-one-basket.html https://slate.com/culture/2001/03/putting-all-your-potatoes-... While there are people who doubt these figures, eating 10 lbs of potatoes per day is definitely more plausible than your comment indicates.
  - ponker 6y ago
    This is kind of inconceivable to me. Is it because I’ve never done enough manual labor to eat 65 potatoes in a day? I can’t imagine even finding the time to cook and eat them.
    - nkurz 6y ago
      Arguing against the article, 1/5 lb is a pretty small potato. I just weighed a baseball sized potato I dug last week, and it was 7.5 oz (~1/2 lb, 200 g). So if you are picturing an average baked potato, it's probably only 30 potatoes per day. Which, granted, is still a lot. Cooking time doesn't strike me as a problem. Boiling 30 potatoes does take somewhat longer than boiling 1 potato because the mass is greater, but it's pretty much boil and forget. Also, the boiling can probably be done by one of those women or children who are only eating 10 potatoes a day!
    - silveroriole 6y ago
      And if the calorie count upthread is right, that’s 4550 calories per day purely from potato, not counting any added butter, milk, beans, meat etc! I know people did more manual labour back then, but something seems wrong with that figure.
bane 6y ago
Potatoes have great yield in terms of calorie per unit harvested. Other plants, not so much. Think about how much weight you might throw away with a pumpkin or a watermelon. I have some family members who devoted about an acre and a half to a mix of crops, squashes mostly as they grow the best where they live, and for a family of 5 still had to supplement their diet pretty significantly. At the same time, they ate more healthily than they ever had before, and often had too much of certain crops that they gave away or sold at the local farmer's market.
ed25519FUUU 6y ago
The magic valley in Idaho (named after its transformation) is a great example of this. Modern irrigation has turned what is naturally a high dessert climate into a food producing powerhouse.

jcampbell1 6y ago

My guess is your one acre of growing whatever you grow would feed about .6 people per year. A human consumes about 1M Kcals a year (accounting for meat as waste), and at best you can achieve 11M kcals per acre with corn or potatos. Beans yield about 6M and wheat 4M. My guess is you are growing and giving away about 600k kcals of roughage. 70lbs of tomatoes only has about 6000 kcal, so enough for one person for half a week.