5 ms·

These are part of a propaganda strategy to make people feel like they're "helping". They are not an effective or efficient way of improving food availability. I

by wyager 4y ago

These are part of a propaganda strategy to make people feel like they're "helping". They are not an effective or efficient way of improving food availability. If you enjoy gardening as a hobby, that's great, but these are not practical bulwarks against food shortages. The economies of scale in industrial farming are insane. The ROI on a personal garden is abysmally low, except for herbs and other low-volume plants.

calvinmorrison 4y ago
> The economies of scale in industrial farming are insane. The ROI on a personal garden is abysmally low, except for herbs and other low-volume plants. So I read this book called "How Asia Works" which documented the economic transformations of a few different Asian countries. I was shocked to learn that in a lot of cases, the industrial farming not the huge boon that was expected efficiently a few people can grow things with intensely you can plant small plot farms. Countries that promoted small-scale household farming instead of moving too soon to large scale farming were more successful, but this was largely because the labor pool can't transition that fast to going from farmers being everyone one in ten overnight. We live at a time where very few people work in farming, the smallest amount in history. Why can't it slide back the other way?
- rmah 4y ago
  It can't slide back because 99%+ of people don't want to live like peasants of 100 years ago. I hope I don't need to explain why having a lot more people spending a lot of their time farming small plots leads to a substantially lower standard of living than an industrial or post-industrial economy.
- wyager 4y ago
  > Countries that promoted small-scale household farming instead of moving too soon to large scale farming were more successful Promoting small-scale farming and industry lead to widespread poverty and famine in cultural revolution China. > very few people work in farming, the smallest amount in history. Why can't it slide back the other way? It could, but this would probably be a pretty bad thing. I guess it depends how many people who currently have fake bullshit jobs transition to being farm workers. My guess is that almost everyone who would go into an expanded ag labor base is currently doing some actually useful work, and we would suffer a severe net decrease in labor output, if we tanked farming efficiency.
  - mellavora 4y ago
    > Promoting small-scale farming and industry lead to widespread poverty and famine in cultural revolution China. In this specific example, there might have been other causes. In general I agree with you, getting the entire US to "go Amish" isn't viable. Just picking on your example which leaves out some of the details about how the transition was "promoted".
Johnny555 4y ago
These are part of a propaganda strategy to make people feel like they're "helping". Depends whether you're gardening for a global food shortage, or to supplement your own use, which I suspect is why most people have home gardens. A home garden can supply a significant fraction of your food - especially if you do canning or otherwise preserve for winter use. From the link in the parent post: Fruit and vegetables harvested in these home and community plots was estimated to be 9,000,000–10,000,000 short tons (8,200,000–9,100,000 t) in 1944, an amount equal to all commercial production of fresh vegetables
- ben7799 4y ago
  You need to compare 1944 commercial yields vs 2022... the commercial/industrial farmers in 2022 have massive advantages that they didn't have in 1944.
- wyager 4y ago
  > Depends whether you're gardening for a global food shortage, or to supplement your own use No, the effect on supply is the same. > A home garden can supply a significant fraction of your food It takes 5+ acres in a decently arable region with fertilizer to feed one person. By the time you're providing for a significant fraction of your caloric intake, it ceases to be a "garden". > an amount equal to all commercial production of fresh vegetables I guarantee this is some misleading bullshit statistic. They've probably selected "fresh vegetables" to mean some very small subset of industrial agriculture, like vegetables that are never canned or frozen.
  - Johnny555 4y ago
    No, the effect on supply is the same. well, no, if you're growing for personal use you can make a notable effect on your own supply/food costs. You don't have to solve the global food shortage to benefit from a personal garden and since the global food shortage will drive up prices, the financial benefit is even greater (as long as price increases in things like fertilizer don't eat up your cost savings).
    - 4y ago
bell-cot 4y ago
Try talking to some older folks - who at least heard many first-hand accounts from relatives who both had WWII Victory Gardens, and also gardened food during the Great Depression, out of economic necessity. With a few years' experience doing that, sharing tips and seeds with neighbors also doing it, and memories of being pretty hungry at times in the winter...ordinary people can get pretty damn good at growing a lot of food in a fairly modest-sized garden.
- wyager 4y ago
  Getting good at gardening doesn't allow you to exceed agribusiness land efficiency levels, so we can put a pretty tight cap on how much small home gardens actually helped.
  - aksss 4y ago
    Isn’t this a bit of a false dichotomy though - solving a (potential) world food shortage or not; being more efficient than industrial farming or not; feeding one’s self/family completely via gardening or not gardening at all? It seems to me that the more people who supplement their food supply with goods that don’t depend on imported supply (home or community gardens) lessens demand fractionally on the general supply, which fractionally helps with local pricing and household budgets, both of which are positives. I’m not sure it’s ever been a requirement of victory gardens to be completely autonomous unless ur a hardcore prepper.
  - Scoundreller 4y ago
    Agribusiness will happily choose lower yields in exchange for improved mechanization. Or resistance to disease (higher risk thereof from aggressive monoculture). Or better shelf life/transportability. Or marketability (yellow tomatoes don’t sell as well). The backyard gardener doesn’t quite have those worries and could get higher land efficiency.
corrral 4y ago
It keeps your variety and options up if rationing kicks in, and lets you stretch the rations farther. It's not a replacement for raw calories.
- wyager 4y ago
  If rationing kicks in, and you're able to garden, that means the government is somehow preventing the ag supply from expanding. Random people gardening is a really inefficient way to work around that.

by wyager 4y ago

calvinmorrison 4y ago

> The economies of scale in industrial farming are insane. The ROI on a personal garden is abysmally low, except for herbs and other low-volume plants. So I read this book called "How Asia Works" which documented the economic transformations of a few different Asian countries. I was shocked to learn that in a lot of cases, the industrial farming not the huge boon that was expected efficiently a few people can grow things with intensely you can plant small plot farms. Countries that promoted small-scale household farming instead of moving too soon to large scale farming were more successful, but this was largely because the labor pool can't transition that fast to going from farmers being everyone one in ten overnight. We live at a time where very few people work in farming, the smallest amount in history. Why can't it slide back the other way?

rmah 4y ago
It can't slide back because 99%+ of people don't want to live like peasants of 100 years ago. I hope I don't need to explain why having a lot more people spending a lot of their time farming small plots leads to a substantially lower standard of living than an industrial or post-industrial economy.
wyager 4y ago
> Countries that promoted small-scale household farming instead of moving too soon to large scale farming were more successful Promoting small-scale farming and industry lead to widespread poverty and famine in cultural revolution China. > very few people work in farming, the smallest amount in history. Why can't it slide back the other way? It could, but this would probably be a pretty bad thing. I guess it depends how many people who currently have fake bullshit jobs transition to being farm workers. My guess is that almost everyone who would go into an expanded ag labor base is currently doing some actually useful work, and we would suffer a severe net decrease in labor output, if we tanked farming efficiency.
- mellavora 4y ago
  > Promoting small-scale farming and industry lead to widespread poverty and famine in cultural revolution China. In this specific example, there might have been other causes. In general I agree with you, getting the entire US to "go Amish" isn't viable. Just picking on your example which leaves out some of the details about how the transition was "promoted".

Johnny555 4y ago

These are part of a propaganda strategy to make people feel like they're "helping". Depends whether you're gardening for a global food shortage, or to supplement your own use, which I suspect is why most people have home gardens. A home garden can supply a significant fraction of your food - especially if you do canning or otherwise preserve for winter use. From the link in the parent post: Fruit and vegetables harvested in these home and community plots was estimated to be 9,000,000–10,000,000 short tons (8,200,000–9,100,000 t) in 1944, an amount equal to all commercial production of fresh vegetables

ben7799 4y ago
You need to compare 1944 commercial yields vs 2022... the commercial/industrial farmers in 2022 have massive advantages that they didn't have in 1944.
wyager 4y ago
> Depends whether you're gardening for a global food shortage, or to supplement your own use No, the effect on supply is the same. > A home garden can supply a significant fraction of your food It takes 5+ acres in a decently arable region with fertilizer to feed one person. By the time you're providing for a significant fraction of your caloric intake, it ceases to be a "garden". > an amount equal to all commercial production of fresh vegetables I guarantee this is some misleading bullshit statistic. They've probably selected "fresh vegetables" to mean some very small subset of industrial agriculture, like vegetables that are never canned or frozen.
- Johnny555 4y ago
  No, the effect on supply is the same. well, no, if you're growing for personal use you can make a notable effect on your own supply/food costs. You don't have to solve the global food shortage to benefit from a personal garden and since the global food shortage will drive up prices, the financial benefit is even greater (as long as price increases in things like fertilizer don't eat up your cost savings).
  - 4y ago

bell-cot 4y ago

Try talking to some older folks - who at least heard many first-hand accounts from relatives who both had WWII Victory Gardens, and also gardened food during the Great Depression, out of economic necessity. With a few years' experience doing that, sharing tips and seeds with neighbors also doing it, and memories of being pretty hungry at times in the winter...ordinary people can get pretty damn good at growing a lot of food in a fairly modest-sized garden.

wyager 4y ago
Getting good at gardening doesn't allow you to exceed agribusiness land efficiency levels, so we can put a pretty tight cap on how much small home gardens actually helped.
- aksss 4y ago
  Isn’t this a bit of a false dichotomy though - solving a (potential) world food shortage or not; being more efficient than industrial farming or not; feeding one’s self/family completely via gardening or not gardening at all? It seems to me that the more people who supplement their food supply with goods that don’t depend on imported supply (home or community gardens) lessens demand fractionally on the general supply, which fractionally helps with local pricing and household budgets, both of which are positives. I’m not sure it’s ever been a requirement of victory gardens to be completely autonomous unless ur a hardcore prepper.
- Scoundreller 4y ago
  Agribusiness will happily choose lower yields in exchange for improved mechanization. Or resistance to disease (higher risk thereof from aggressive monoculture). Or better shelf life/transportability. Or marketability (yellow tomatoes don’t sell as well). The backyard gardener doesn’t quite have those worries and could get higher land efficiency.

corrral 4y ago

It keeps your variety and options up if rationing kicks in, and lets you stretch the rations farther. It's not a replacement for raw calories.

wyager 4y ago
If rationing kicks in, and you're able to garden, that means the government is somehow preventing the ag supply from expanding. Random people gardening is a really inefficient way to work around that.