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  • From: Clansgian AT wmconnect.com
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] if everyone homesteaded
  • Date: Wed, 25 Mar 2009 11:29:24 EDT

In a message dated 3/23/2009 3:29:05 PM Eastern Standard Time,
lynnw1366 AT hotmail.com writes:


> >>A standard city lot is all that is needed for sustanance "homesteading."
> I
> > mean, sure, more would be better so that you could grow your own grains
> > but
> > bottomline, you could get by quite nicely on a city lot.
>
> >That depends on the city.

A 'city lot' is a vague measure, true, but in the common parlance it means
somewhere between a quarter and a sixth of an acre. It's like the urban
measure
of a 'block'. A block will usually mean a couple hundred feet, but some
actual blocks, the distance between two streets, are twenty feet while some
are
thousands of feet.

With that proviso, Lynda is quite right. And it isn't a matter of getting
every scrap of everything you ever eat from that urban homestead. Who does
that
anyway? But even 20' x 30' can take the wind out of the sails of food
expenses.

Take the example of Cuba. When the Soviet Union's support went away, the
Cubans began gardening every square inch of urban land including flower pots
and
the medians of roads. The most interesting phenomenon is that much of the
rural agricultural land was abandoned at the same time. When it came right
down
to having beans in the pot at dinner time, attention and limited fertilizer
(compost) was deemed better spent on the vegetable plot beside the apartment
building and the tub on the roof rather than the sugar cane field fifty miles
away. "Farms" became two or three acres near the cities. But most food came
from personal allotments, gardens (Sp. 'huerto') See for example:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/apr/04/organics.food

The world is already eating even with its tremendous population. Intensive,
hand operated, organic methods produce more, a lot more, food per square foot
than does agribusiness. So how is it that if the world turned, as Cuba did
by
necessity, to intensive and sustainable organic agriculture that there would
not be eoungh resources for it?


James








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