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  • From: dhondt <dhondt@eircom.net>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] space for food self reliance?
  • Date: Fri, 6 Nov 2015 22:16:15 +0000

One thing to keep in mind Georg is that you need a bit of variety and fun in the diet. If we really wanted to feed the maximal number of people we would have to restrict ourselves to potatoes (12 kg/meter square), pumpkins (8kg/meter square and runner beans (6 kg of dried beans /square meter) and then kale and turnips in winter.
We devote a lot of space to luxuries like Cape gooseberries, strawberries and figs that do not give an optimal calorie return for the space they take in. In fact we also grow about 100 different medicinals, perhaps 160 different plant species. That variety keeps us and the plants happy and healthy but it is now meant to feed the maximum number of people from our 1 acre.
John

On 06/11/15 12:54, Georg Parlow wrote:
Thank you John, Bob, Lawrence!
So far I see similarities and differences in views.

4000 square feet = (roughly) 400 sq meters/adult - which is about the figure
I have been reading before as the lower limit. this adds up to 10 vegan
adults per acre - so there is a fairly close connection to '5 or 6 people on
an acre' because there are goats and eggs included.

Since I have experienced, how much food can come out of a tiny garden of
literally a few square meters, if right next to the house and very closely
tended and monitored, I trust we can do better than that. 1000 sqm (= approx
10.000 sq feet) of greenhouse, part of it as an aquaponics system - I think
would dare to take on 20 people per acre, maybe 30.

However, 160 people on an acre is quite a different game alltogether. I mean,
for startes we will not see problems with importing e.g. grain (from a local
biofarm), and we can slowly intensify as we grow in experience. And in case
TSHTF we can always dig up the recreational lawns, etc.

Another issue is, that the way we are planning it now, electricity should be
available - all our roofs (we are talking about 35.000 sq feet) will be
dedicated to PV, maybe some hot water. For heating our tech guy talks about
deep pipes and heat with earth warmth - and we are going to have minimum
energy houses (3 big appartment buildings plus sheds’n’shops) anyways. With
energy and water and manpower (read: attention, love and care) available, I
would suspect to being able to go lower on land.

But more educated opinions would be appreciated.

Georg


Am 06.11.2015 um 01:06 schrieb Bob Waldrop <bob@bobwaldrop.net>:

AFAIK, the most actual research that has been done on this is the Ecology Action folks
in Willits, who produced the famous How to Grow More Vegetables, together with the less
well know, but perhaps even more important, "one Circle" which is a guide to
growing all your own food. Their calculations say that you can grow a vegan diet in
4000 square feet of growing area, per adult person.

For a complete sustainable diet, they prescribe 60% in compost and grain
crops, 30% in special root crops and 10% in soft fruits and vegetables, which
includes dry or hard beans.

Bob Waldrop, OKC


On 11/5/2015 4:52 PM, dhondt wrote:
Unless your soil is very unfertile it is generally thought that 1 acre should
be able to feed 5-6 people well year round. And that is my personal
experience also here in Ireland. Of course our winters are usually mild
enough to grow fresh crops, chosen for their winter hardness) year round but
then we don't have a long hot summer, We had frost in July this year.
Of course in our warmer months we grow storable products like peas, beans,
quinoa, seed amaranth,oats, potatoes and pumpkin tribe. All crops that would
not survive our winter.
As soon as these are harvested we plant with turnips, kale and winter radish
and lettuce mostly and also crops that will start producing early in Spring
such as sprouting broccoli and broad beans (these last in poly tunnel). And
these produce really well on condition that they get planted as early as
possible in October.
1/5th of an acre are sufficient for this and more and in fact we have mulched
about half the beds now so that they will be ready for an early planting. We
could produce another ton of rutabagas but we would frankly not know what to
do with them.
Carrots, leeks, cabbages, scorzonera, etc remain in the ground until we need
them
Berries have been mulched and poultry in the orchard is now giving us an egg
or two per day until February when egg production will rise again to two
dozen eggs per day or so. Two milking goats keep milking through the winter
in their 1/4 acre paddock and guinea pigs keep mowing the grassy paths
between the beds. A pond with fish is planned for next year and that space is
now wild vegetation.

You will have to choose your crops to suit your climate but one acre should
feed 5-6 people with some to spare if you do it right.
John


On 05/11/15 22:00, Georg Parlow wrote:
Hello there,

I have a question regarding the need of space for self reliance in food.

I am involved in the development of a kind of permaculturally biased
cohousing development (you will hear more about it in the future). I will be
approx 70 apartments in 2 story buildings, every 12 or so apartments have a
commons kitchen, 1/3 of the inhabitants will be elderly in need of some care
that will be provided by neighbors. There will be at least one full time
market gardener in charge of food production, who can rely on a mostly
unskilled workforce (we will have an internal LETS system in place) of, say
40 parttimers. For the ease of calculation lets assume it will be 100 adults
and maybe 40 to 60 kids. We are planning on a 1000m2 greenhouse, intensely
managed gardens, poultry and bees, and fish in an indoor aquaponic closed
loop circulation system. Since land is expensive where we plan to build, we
want to get by with the minimum necessary acreage. Now lets ignore the
houses, recreation etc, and just look at food production:
How much land will we need to provide food security? Now don't get me wrong,
I am not talking general self reliance, just basic food self reliance (no
fiber, no fuel, just food). I guess we are talking mostly zone 1 and 2 here.
Of course, we will stack and nest the different uses (closely managed
orchard, chicken, staple crops, vegetables, fish) as much as possible.

We are in a wine growing area, with an annual average temp of 9.5 to 10°C,
fairly long and hot summers, approx 400mm annual precipitation but we have
easy acces to groundwater of acceptable quality, so irrigation is possible.
Since manpower probably isn't the problem either, I even think that growing
grain in garden style would be feasible, thus yielding more per area unit, by
turning this part of zone 3 into zone 2. Quite a few nut trees should become
integrated in the recreational part as shade trees, so this part of zone 3
won’t be big. Fertilizer should not be the limiting factor either, we want to
upcyle organic waste with BSF and worms, and if the going gets tough there
should be plenty of urine available, growing thing the Chinese style. Some
indoor mushroom production should also be possible, the room with the fish
tanks and the thus high humindity offers itself for this.

Please ask me your questions, if you need more input, and let me know what
you think - how much land will we need for food production?

Thx,
Georg
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