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> In WWII home gardens roughly doubled fresh vegetable production. This is obviously not true in any meaningful sense. I assume this is based on "fresh" restri

• deleted 4y ago
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• Retric 4y ago
  In the US it was 18 million victory gardens out of a population of 140 million people. They really did represent a lot of land and a lot of labor. In absolute numbers they allowed a 50% increase in total vegetable production over farms alone in the US. Fresh in this context referred to the amount of canning going on. So they made a very significant difference to diets of people domestically.
  • wyager 4y ago
    > In absolute numbers they allowed a 50% increase in total vegetable production over farms alone in the US. Once again, this is a facially stupid claim. If you know anything about industrial agriculture, it's clearly impossible. Where are you reading this? My guess is you're being confused by the "fresh" qualifier, which is probably the intention.
    • Retric 4y ago
      “The US Department of Agriculture estimates that more than 20 million victory gardens were planted. Fruit and vegetables harvested in these home and community plots was estimated to be 9-10 million tons, an amount equal to all commercial production of fresh vegetables.” https://livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe40s/crops_02.html https://livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe40s/crops_02.html That’s 3 pounds per person per week, or 1/3 of the total 12lb of vegetables per person consumed per week. https://www.ars.usda.gov/ARSUserFiles/80400530/pdf/hist/bhnhe_1944_misc_pub_550.pdf https://www.ars.usda.gov/ARSUserFiles/80400530/pdf/hist/bhnh...