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Agreed, but industrial agribusiness is predicated on huge automation and the idea that one farmer can farm hundred or thousands of acres. That's an efficient u

Agreed, but industrial agribusiness is predicated on huge automation and the idea that one farmer can farm hundred or thousands of acres. That's an efficient use of labor, but not of acres. We might be getting to the point that land is more valuable than labor and thus it makes sense to spend more human effort per acre than in the past. Here are people in LA that grow a huge amount of food in their backyard, 1/10 of an acre: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCmTJkZy0rM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCmTJkZy0rM Here's a guy in Canada that makes a legit living urban farming 1/3 of an acre: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnCIlq0KPw0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnCIlq0KPw0 There are tons of additional examples on youtube of other people doing very similar things. The point, though, is that it's very intensive on a labor per acre basis. You can't do this kind of farming with big tractors over thousands of acres with just a few people, you need several people per acre for it to work. But it does work! Yes there is a limit eventually, but the point isn't as low as you think.

joshuapants 12y ago
The LA example is interesting, I'd be interested in seeing a more detailed breakdown of what exactly they grew because pounds of food aren't exactly fungible (a pound of lettuce has 77 calories, a pound of potatoes has ~350). From some back of the napkin math, it seems that current farming techniques yield about 50,000 pounds of potatoes per acre, so on the 1/10 acre scale in terms of vegetable matter they outpace the LA farm (though this will vary by crop. It might make more sense to compare calories per acre). I think you have a point, it's certainly worth looking into whether the gains from more labor-intensive farming are greater than the cost of labor when adopted en masse.
- msandford 12y ago
  It might also make sense to look at it from a gallons of fuel per acre too. Even if you only break even in terms of production, if you can eliminate the reliance on diesel and all the compromises that must be made there might be substantial wins nonetheless. For example as farming gets more labor intensive you can do things like cut steps into a hill to stop erosion or to till and plant always perpendicular to the slope of the hill so that there aren't any easy channels for runoff to head downhill. I've read that in the US there are 9 calories of fuel in every 1 calorie of food delivered to the table. In other places around the world, it's more like 1 calorie of fuel to every 1 calorie of food. In other words, many places are turning fuel directly into food on a 1:1 basis. It takes us 9 times as much fuel to make food, which is pretty friggin awful. If you don't mind that he's an outspoken, right-wing, traditional Christian kinda guy Joel Salatin has some very interesting ideas about getting a lot of use out of land with very, very little fuel and not much feed input. Here's one video but there are tons more in the sidebar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13i1ZUovj6Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13i1ZUovj6Y

joshuapants 12y ago

The LA example is interesting, I'd be interested in seeing a more detailed breakdown of what exactly they grew because pounds of food aren't exactly fungible (a pound of lettuce has 77 calories, a pound of potatoes has ~350). From some back of the napkin math, it seems that current farming techniques yield about 50,000 pounds of potatoes per acre, so on the 1/10 acre scale in terms of vegetable matter they outpace the LA farm (though this will vary by crop. It might make more sense to compare calories per acre). I think you have a point, it's certainly worth looking into whether the gains from more labor-intensive farming are greater than the cost of labor when adopted en masse.

msandford 12y ago
It might also make sense to look at it from a gallons of fuel per acre too. Even if you only break even in terms of production, if you can eliminate the reliance on diesel and all the compromises that must be made there might be substantial wins nonetheless. For example as farming gets more labor intensive you can do things like cut steps into a hill to stop erosion or to till and plant always perpendicular to the slope of the hill so that there aren't any easy channels for runoff to head downhill. I've read that in the US there are 9 calories of fuel in every 1 calorie of food delivered to the table. In other places around the world, it's more like 1 calorie of fuel to every 1 calorie of food. In other words, many places are turning fuel directly into food on a 1:1 basis. It takes us 9 times as much fuel to make food, which is pretty friggin awful. If you don't mind that he's an outspoken, right-wing, traditional Christian kinda guy Joel Salatin has some very interesting ideas about getting a lot of use out of land with very, very little fuel and not much feed input. Here's one video but there are tons more in the sidebar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13i1ZUovj6Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13i1ZUovj6Y