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I've seen difference estimates, but you need ~5 acres of land to feed one person for a year with a balanced diet. Intensive farming can reduce that if you focus

I've seen difference estimates, but you need ~5 acres of land to feed one person for a year with a balanced diet. Intensive farming can reduce that if you focus on monoculture grain crops. Meat increases the land need. A backyard garden and local foraging doesn't cut it. And if you are feeding a whole community ... you need a lot of land.

tipoftheiceberg 4y ago
Vertical indoor farming is the paradigm shift we’ve been waiting for. Thanks in part to advances in LED lighting efficiency and cost. Much more land and water efficient.
- dredmorbius 4y ago
  Under the scenario mentioned (supply-chain disruption), vertical farming might prove somewhat less productive than you envision.
- tomcam 4y ago
  There’s plenty to do for vertical outdoor farming right now, especially in constrained circumstances.
- ClumsyPilot 4y ago
  vertical farming makes no sence : you are loosing 90% of energy converting light into electricity and back into light for the plants, or you are burning fuel. Normal greenhouses are much simpler, more efficient and have been in use for decades. They make full use of the sun.
voisin 4y ago
> I've seen difference estimates, but you need ~5 acres of land to feed one person for a year with a balanced diet. Check out “The Market Gardener” by Jean Martin Fortier. The quoted statement is a myth. Farms historically were nowhere near as large as today and we able to provide a balanced diet to those literally on the same block (think “in-fill market gardens”)
- chrisdinn 4y ago
  He usually goes by JM Fortier on YouTube and I think he’s great. He’s a real inspiration to me, for sure. He’s very open and has a lot of stuff up there on various channels about the development of his market garden.
  - voisin 4y ago
    He’s great if you want to garden as a business, but if you have a bit more flexibility and time, I’d recommend permaculture as a sustainable and lower cost starting point. Bio—intensive farming like Fortier advocates is great but more expensive to start.
phyzome 4y ago
That estimate seems more than a little high! It depends on what you mean by "balanced diet" (are you going to require meat?) but let's just work an example with sweet potatoes, which are pretty nutritionally packed and can be ludicrously productive. Let's say you planted just one acre over with sweet potatoes; you could grow roughly 5 tons of usable roots, about 10,000 kcal/day. Swap some of that area out for other crops for nutrient balance and you'd still have a huge excess for one person, even accounting for a farmer's caloric needs. You might also end up hating sweet potatoes after a year, but that's why you specialize in a few calorie crops and then trade with others for what you need. Anyway, it seems to me that an acre would be more than enough for a whole family.
- carbadtraingood 4y ago
  An acre might be low, five acres might be high. Depends a lot on what the local conditions are like, what you can grow, what tools you have. I keep bees, for instance, and my hives produce about 50-100lbs of honey per year. It's not super nutritious, but it's low effort per lb. Ten hives could produce a lot of raw calories. But it's also a skill, and you can kill your bees if you aren't careful. The point I'm making is that, we're all bringing different skills and backgrounds. I've grown potatoes but never at the scale of an acre. I don't know what challenges that brings.
  - eru 4y ago
    For bees, I suspect the limiting factor is land for their foraging?
    - Scoundreller 4y ago
      It’s not theft because the bees are stealing from your neighbours for you!
      - eru 4y ago
        Yes. But I was more worried about every neighbour on the block trying to run a hundred hives.
dragonwriter 4y ago
> I've seen difference estimates, but you need ~5 acres of land to feed one person for a year with a balanced diet. If it's one year’s output of that land to feed that person for a year, then it's just 5 acres for a person (and you can drop of then “for a year”, since the output period matches the consumption period.)
mythrwy 4y ago
You could feed a person off less then half an acre in regions with a decently long growing season. Even could support a few chickens. The above is true with some qualifications. You will need decent soil and plentiful clean water. And a power source to pump the water. And fertility which you will have to bring in. The compost you make won't do it. A way to control pests, (ya ya muh organic, but we are trying to survive here). So some pesticides. Sprayers. More then one, they break. Maybe some herbicides as well so you don't burn so many calories hoeing. Some mechanical help like a rototiller will make this much more possible. Fuel oil and parts for that. Some fencing and trellising. Bird netting. A way to preserve harvests like canning, drying or freezing. Most importantly (and most people will lack this rendering half an acre vs 5 acres moot for practical purposes) you will need a fair amount of expertise to pull it off. Generally from experience. And it will be a lot of work and mostly unforgiving of mistakes. Source: I mostly made it up, but I am an agronomist and long time gardener. It's probably roughly right though.
- eru 4y ago
  The expertise isn't that much of a problem, unless you want to go it completely alone. I'd assume even with massive supply chain disruptions, books still exist (and perhaps even libraries) and you can still ask other people for advice or even band together, division of labour is still a thing and useful. You can either organise that as some kind of cooperative, or just like we organise companies today.
- tomcam 4y ago
  > And fertility which you will have to bring in. Well I don’t, but if you need some help I suppose you can use my profile for contact information. This could be delicate for both our families. KIDDING I’m pretty sure you meant fertilizer there. And yes, your half acre number is much much closer to accurate.
carapace 4y ago
These folks: http://growbiointensive.org/grow_main.html http://growbiointensive.org/grow_main.html have a system that produces a complete diet in 5000 ft² (465m²) per person. It also produces its own compost, so that the farm increases soil volume and fertility year-on-year too. (Their server seems to be slow tonight, check out this for a summary of their system: https://web.archive.org/web/20210411002519/http://growbiointensive.org/60%2030%2010%20circle.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20210411002519/http://growbioint... )

tipoftheiceberg 4y ago

Vertical indoor farming is the paradigm shift we’ve been waiting for. Thanks in part to advances in LED lighting efficiency and cost. Much more land and water efficient.

dredmorbius 4y ago
Under the scenario mentioned (supply-chain disruption), vertical farming might prove somewhat less productive than you envision.
tomcam 4y ago
There’s plenty to do for vertical outdoor farming right now, especially in constrained circumstances.
ClumsyPilot 4y ago
vertical farming makes no sence : you are loosing 90% of energy converting light into electricity and back into light for the plants, or you are burning fuel. Normal greenhouses are much simpler, more efficient and have been in use for decades. They make full use of the sun.

voisin 4y ago

> I've seen difference estimates, but you need ~5 acres of land to feed one person for a year with a balanced diet. Check out “The Market Gardener” by Jean Martin Fortier. The quoted statement is a myth. Farms historically were nowhere near as large as today and we able to provide a balanced diet to those literally on the same block (think “in-fill market gardens”)

chrisdinn 4y ago
He usually goes by JM Fortier on YouTube and I think he’s great. He’s a real inspiration to me, for sure. He’s very open and has a lot of stuff up there on various channels about the development of his market garden.
- voisin 4y ago
  He’s great if you want to garden as a business, but if you have a bit more flexibility and time, I’d recommend permaculture as a sustainable and lower cost starting point. Bio—intensive farming like Fortier advocates is great but more expensive to start.

phyzome 4y ago

That estimate seems more than a little high! It depends on what you mean by "balanced diet" (are you going to require meat?) but let's just work an example with sweet potatoes, which are pretty nutritionally packed and can be ludicrously productive. Let's say you planted just one acre over with sweet potatoes; you could grow roughly 5 tons of usable roots, about 10,000 kcal/day. Swap some of that area out for other crops for nutrient balance and you'd still have a huge excess for one person, even accounting for a farmer's caloric needs. You might also end up hating sweet potatoes after a year, but that's why you specialize in a few calorie crops and then trade with others for what you need. Anyway, it seems to me that an acre would be more than enough for a whole family.

carbadtraingood 4y ago
An acre might be low, five acres might be high. Depends a lot on what the local conditions are like, what you can grow, what tools you have. I keep bees, for instance, and my hives produce about 50-100lbs of honey per year. It's not super nutritious, but it's low effort per lb. Ten hives could produce a lot of raw calories. But it's also a skill, and you can kill your bees if you aren't careful. The point I'm making is that, we're all bringing different skills and backgrounds. I've grown potatoes but never at the scale of an acre. I don't know what challenges that brings.
- eru 4y ago
  For bees, I suspect the limiting factor is land for their foraging?
  - Scoundreller 4y ago
    It’s not theft because the bees are stealing from your neighbours for you!
    - eru 4y ago
      Yes. But I was more worried about every neighbour on the block trying to run a hundred hives.

dragonwriter 4y ago

> I've seen difference estimates, but you need ~5 acres of land to feed one person for a year with a balanced diet. If it's one year’s output of that land to feed that person for a year, then it's just 5 acres for a person (and you can drop of then “for a year”, since the output period matches the consumption period.)

mythrwy 4y ago

You could feed a person off less then half an acre in regions with a decently long growing season. Even could support a few chickens. The above is true with some qualifications. You will need decent soil and plentiful clean water. And a power source to pump the water. And fertility which you will have to bring in. The compost you make won't do it. A way to control pests, (ya ya muh organic, but we are trying to survive here). So some pesticides. Sprayers. More then one, they break. Maybe some herbicides as well so you don't burn so many calories hoeing. Some mechanical help like a rototiller will make this much more possible. Fuel oil and parts for that. Some fencing and trellising. Bird netting. A way to preserve harvests like canning, drying or freezing. Most importantly (and most people will lack this rendering half an acre vs 5 acres moot for practical purposes) you will need a fair amount of expertise to pull it off. Generally from experience. And it will be a lot of work and mostly unforgiving of mistakes. Source: I mostly made it up, but I am an agronomist and long time gardener. It's probably roughly right though.

eru 4y ago
The expertise isn't that much of a problem, unless you want to go it completely alone. I'd assume even with massive supply chain disruptions, books still exist (and perhaps even libraries) and you can still ask other people for advice or even band together, division of labour is still a thing and useful. You can either organise that as some kind of cooperative, or just like we organise companies today.
tomcam 4y ago
> And fertility which you will have to bring in. Well I don’t, but if you need some help I suppose you can use my profile for contact information. This could be delicate for both our families. KIDDING I’m pretty sure you meant fertilizer there. And yes, your half acre number is much much closer to accurate.

carapace 4y ago

These folks: http://growbiointensive.org/grow_main.html http://growbiointensive.org/grow_main.html have a system that produces a complete diet in 5000 ft² (465m²) per person. It also produces its own compost, so that the farm increases soil volume and fertility year-on-year too. (Their server seems to be slow tonight, check out this for a summary of their system: https://web.archive.org/web/20210411002519/http://growbiointensive.org/60%2030%2010%20circle.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20210411002519/http://growbioint... )