Self sufficiency, how much land???

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Self sufficiency, how much land???
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Blue Peter

Joined: 21 Mar 2005
Posts: 2400
Location: Milton Keynes

Posted: Thu Sep 08, 05 3:55 pm Post subject:

tahir wrote:

Blue Peter wrote:

Agreed. Though presumably there's something about wheat. It's had a very long history and is very popular in very many parts of the world,

High gluten levels?

I was wondering that. Is it the only thing you can make a "proper" leavened loaf of bread from?

Peter.

Blue Peter

Joined: 21 Mar 2005
Posts: 2400
Location: Milton Keynes

Posted: Thu Sep 08, 05 3:55 pm Post subject:

Judith wrote:

I would still argue, though, that every additional crop will increase the amount of land required compared to monoculture, and it will certainly increase the time and effort required so our family still need to make some hard choices about what they are going to grow!

How do things stack up if you have a community, though? Is the whole greater than the sum of the parts?

Peter.

Last edited by Blue Peter on Thu Sep 08, 05 4:00 pm; edited 1 time in total

tahir

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 45420
Location: Essex

Posted: Thu Sep 08, 05 3:58 pm Post subject:

Blue Peter wrote:

How do things stack up if you have a community, though/ Is the whole greater than the sum of the parts?

Things get exponentially better, it doesn't take much more fuel to bake 20 loaves of bread than one etc.

Specialisation within communities definitely has a lot of advantages, I suppose that's why we're social animals.

judith

Joined: 16 Dec 2004
Posts: 22789
Location: Montgomeryshire

Posted: Thu Sep 08, 05 4:28 pm Post subject:
Sounds as though you have talked yourself out of this self-sufficiency idea

tahir

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 45420
Location: Essex

Posted: Thu Sep 08, 05 4:33 pm Post subject:

Judith wrote:

Sounds as though you have talked yourself out of this self-sufficiency idea

I've no ambition to be self sufficient, except perhaps in chicken and eggs, it's just one of those questions that people often ask

judith

Joined: 16 Dec 2004
Posts: 22789
Location: Montgomeryshire

Posted: Thu Sep 08, 05 4:40 pm Post subject:
I think the answer to the question is that you can't - people never have been since they moved on from the hunter-gatherer life.

Blue Peter

Joined: 21 Mar 2005
Posts: 2400
Location: Milton Keynes

Posted: Thu Sep 08, 05 4:40 pm Post subject:

tahir wrote:

Judith wrote:

Sounds as though you have talked yourself out of this self-sufficiency idea

I've no ambition to be self sufficient, except perhaps in chicken and eggs, it's just one of those questions that people often ask

Peter.

tahir

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 45420
Location: Essex

Posted: Thu Sep 08, 05 4:44 pm Post subject:

Judith wrote:

I think the answer to the question is that you can't - people never have been since they moved on from the hunter-gatherer life.

You're probably right, when my mum and dad were subsistence farmers a lot of what they did was communal, it just couldn't have been done any other way. It'd still be interesting to know how small a community (in how much land) could realistically be self sufficient.

Blue Peter

Joined: 21 Mar 2005
Posts: 2400
Location: Milton Keynes

Posted: Thu Sep 08, 05 4:45 pm Post subject:

tahir wrote:

It'd still be interesting to know how small a community (in how much land) could realistically be self sufficient.

With my peak oil hat on, I'd say that that could even be a vital question,

Peter.

tahir

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 45420
Location: Essex

Posted: Thu Sep 08, 05 4:46 pm Post subject:

Blue Peter wrote:

I think it's a fair question, I've been asked and have wondered myself what land resource is required for self sufficiency, but as Judith says I think it's an awful long time since humans lived in self sufficient family groups on a large scale.

Treacodactyl
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 25795
Location: Jumping on the bandwagon of opportunism

Posted: Thu Sep 08, 05 5:02 pm Post subject:

If the question is changed slightly to how much land would a family of 4 need to be 95% efficient and the 5% is essentials such as medicines that cannot be grown or made. That gives us a bit of room to think. If we also use the peak oil example and think of, say, 50 years time then we may have to produce enough for all our needs.

So, using some info from my 'Small Woods' info pack from the Small Woods Association, it suggests you need about 3 hectares of woodland to heat a 4 bedroom house all year. That's a little over 7 acres and I think if you allow for a smaller house and cooking then 10 acres of quality woodland is required.

If you have this sort of land I expect you to be able to gather some food from it. Coppice cut on a 10 year cycle would have a couple of acres each year that could produce some crops. There would also be meat in the form of vermin you have to control (rabbit and pigeon mainly) and possibly food from the trees from leaves and fruit, although coppice may not produce much fruit.

I've always had the idea of about 50 acres in my mind for a smallholding. Large amounts of woodland even if it's just very wide hedges with trees in for firewood. I would feel comfortable of being able to live off the land with a small family if I had to.

wellington womble

Joined: 08 Nov 2004
Posts: 15051
Location: East Midlands

Posted: Thu Sep 08, 05 7:59 pm Post subject:

That sounds rather a lot, treac. I heard somewhere (I think it was Monty Don) that you can keep yourself in heating if you have 1 acre of coppiced ash trees. Having said that, it got to be very variable, as in how many rooms you're heating, and how much heat you want - Are you out with your oxen ploughing fields all day, and only want a couple of hours in the evening!? - or on insulation etc etc etc.

I guess we go through a half shedful (6 x 10) a year, but the fire isn't our only heating, and is only alight about 50 percent of the time, Ocotber to March. We don't cook on it either....., but even if you allow say, 5 times that, I reckon we're only talking in numbers of a handful of trees still, I know there are differnet stages of copppice, and not all be be mature at once, but it still seems like an acre or two would do it.

Mind you, I have absolutely no aspirations to be self-sufficient, although I would like one day to be able to produce all of my meat, and the majority of its food, and my veg. Not this year, though

Blue Peter

Joined: 21 Mar 2005
Posts: 2400
Location: Milton Keynes

Posted: Fri Sep 09, 05 8:50 am Post subject:

Treacodactyl wrote:

If we also use the peak oil example and think of, say, 50 years time then we may have to produce enough for all our needs.

I think that 50 years is rather optimistic,

Peter.

thos

Joined: 08 Mar 2005
Posts: 1139
Location: Jauche, Duchy of Brabant (Bourgogne-ci) and Charolles, Duchy of Burgundy (Bourgogne-ça)

Posted: Fri Sep 09, 05 10:27 am Post subject:

Blue Peter wrote:

Or, more sensibly, back in the middle ages, how much land did you have (as a serf),

It is quite amazing what the middle ages serf did not have. Most of our staple fruits and vegetables are of recent origin, either from breeding or from crossing with American species. That's why the peasants mainly lived off bread and beer. The large number of modern species and varieties, not to mention greenhouses and cloches, makes us less dependent of agriculture now than ever before.

Of course, our hypothetical family would still need to buy greenhouses.

And on another thought, how do you make a polytunnel without oil?

Blue Peter

Joined: 21 Mar 2005
Posts: 2400
Location: Milton Keynes

Posted: Fri Sep 09, 05 12:14 pm Post subject:

thos wrote:

But what did they have!? A few acres for wheat and barley? Some more for their oxen?

Peter.

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