Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>]

I assume that's you on the Kubota, right? Now, I'd like to reach the same 
conclusion but Worden Farm, being a CSA with volunteer labor, wouldn't be the 
best case of a 50-acre farm supporting 50 people. We don't have enough 
information to know how far that production would go to "support" 50 people. 
And the need for six volunteer laborers still leaves the financial viability 
of 50-acres supporting 50 people offsite an open question. And as Mark 
reminds us, not all acres are created equal. Florida with a nine-month 
growing season should be able to reach the mark if anywhere can.

But there's more than the question of 50 acres feeding 50 people. To 
completely support one person per acre it also needs to make a profit to fund 
all other needs besides food. There's a test of financial viability in all 
this. I remain skeptical about power machinery in the cost/gross ratio. 
Mark's point about livestock raises another question. What kind of livestock 
works best for maintaining fertility? Does it increase labor too much? Can 
outside inputs work better financially?

paul tradingpost@lobo.net


*********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********

On 10/11/2009 at 11:56 PM Kate Spinner wrote:

>There's a 55-acre farm in Charlotte County, Florida that supports a
>family and feeds hundreds of people an amazingly diverse array of
>vegetables for nine months out of the year. They have six apprentices
>to help them, but based on what I see the farm bring to the farmer's
>market, I'm thinking it could easily support 50 people even if only a
>third of those people were actually there year-round.
>http://www.wordenfarm.com/
>
>On Oct 11, 2009, at 11:32 PM, Tradingpost wrote:
>
>>
>> You're probably right, one acre through the seasons. But I have to
>> agree totally, for 50 acres to support 50 people, they definitely
>> would have to be on those acres. I think labor and transportation
>> factors come in there. I think they'd have to be doing the work and
>> not be someplace else. More thoughts on this?
>>
>> paul tradingpost@lobo.net
>>
>>
>> *********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********
>>
>> On 10/11/2009 at 5:29 PM Dan Conine wrote:
>>
>>>>
>>>> Always appropriate, isn't it. As for us here we grow for markets
>>>> on less
>>>> than a quarter acre. It's not a living of course, and with a short
>>>> frost-free season, poor soil to start with and very low rainfall
>>>> it's too
>>>> much work for us.
>>> My father acquired a 1300 acre farm for 100 bucks an acre in 1975.
>>> Being
>>> mostly swamp and tundra, it barely supported 100 milking head and the
>>> other supporting cast (pigs, calves, heifers, etc). I thought of it
>>> as a
>>> massive farm.
>>>
>>> I now own 50 acres, and I have learned to think of it as a massive
>>> place. It is a size which requires machinery, but even with
>>> machinery,
>>> one person cannot be on the whole place in their mind. Regardless
>>> of the
>>> labor, I have found that an acre is as much as one person can
>>> properly
>>> keep in useful focus throughout the seasons. More than that and the
>>> details suffer.
>>>
>>> I now understand how this farm could be 50 families' source of food
>>> and
>>> income, but they would have to BE here in order for it to happen. We
>>> have spent the last 100 years destroying that opportunity with
>>> petroleum
>>> and money as motive.
>>>
>>> Dan C.
>>>
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>>> Livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
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>>
>>
>>
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