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  • From: "Margaret L. Wilson" <booldawgs@frontiernet.net>
  • To: "permaculture" <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] how to acquire land
  • Date: Wed, 9 Sep 2009 13:23:00 -0700

Words from experience: Get your water rights legally and physically
understood BEFORE you buy anything, anywhere. I bought a perfect 54 acre
farming property with 36 acres of water rights. It cost a fortune to
actually get the water here.
Margaret
http://www.farfarawayfarm.blogspot.com/
----- Original Message -----
From: Toby Hemenway
To: permaculture
Sent: Wednesday, September 09, 2009 1:04 PM
Subject: Re: [permaculture] how to acquire land


Notes from my own experience and observations: In acquiring land, think
carefully and honestly about what your goals are. In general, I urge
buying the best soil and water you can afford (having once had steep
land with heavy, exhausted soil and not much water). Yes, soil can be
rehabilitated, in 5-10 years. And water can be harvested and stored,
after swaling and pond building. But you will get a big head start by
beginning with good soil and access to water, and can invest your energy
in producing and enhancing habitat, rather than rehabilitation.

How much land do you really need? If your goal is self-reliant food
production, an acre or three is more than enough; really, a half acre
will produce vast amounts. Or do you want more land to have privacy and
control? Those are two very different goals. I once thought I wanted
lots of land to manage, but I really wanted solitude. You don't need to
own the land for that, and it just makes more work and higher taxes.

I'm familiar with Ran Prieur's project, and he spends most of his time
working very hard on rehabilitation and dealing with the problems of
acreage, and not so much, it seems, on actually improving (in the sense
of building and planting) and producing on his place. He's been working
there 5 years, lost and is still losing a huge proportion of his
plantings, and doesn't have buildings up yet AFAIK. If just working hard
on land is what you enjoy, that's fine. Or if rehabilitation is your
goal, rather than production, get an exhausted or cut-over piece. But
rehab is a lot more work, takes a longer timeframe before yields become
apparent, and will take up a larger proportion of your time than growing
food if you try to do both.

Community is very important. Eventually you will start being affected by
your neighbors, and many parts of the country where land is cheap have
inhabitants who may not share your values. At some point that will
probably get to you.

I get a lot of consulting calls to look at steep, cut-over land in
remote locations, and when I see how hard the people there have worked
to get so little, my heart aches. Any savvy farmer wouldn't go near
those places. City folk with dreams buy them. And my recommendation, if
I'm blunt, is to move to better land.

You get what you pay for. From my own hard-earned experience, I'd rather
have a small piece of good, level land with ample water near a
supportive community than a big piece of burnt-out land in an
unsupportive area.

Toby
http://patternliteracy.com


Justin Hahn wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> Do any of you have any tips on acquiring inexpensively-priced land? It
> doesn't have to be the best land, nor does it have to be developed or
> settled land. Just land to live and permaculture on. The author of a
> blog I
> read (Ran Prieur) acquired a few acres of logged out Idaho land from a
> logging company on the cheap. I'm wondering if there are any other ways to
> get land without taking out a mortgage or leasing it.
> Degraded land (logged out, intensively farmed, etc) especially would be
> good.
> I'm thinking about $10,000-20,000.
>
> Best regards and thank you for your wisdom.
> _______________________________________________
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