Believing In My "Little Teeny Farm"

[Cascadiana]

One of my favorite books as a young adult was "Five Acres And Independence," which helped solidify my goals to be self-sufficient with a large garden and small livestock to SUPPLEMENT my food budget. At no time did I entertain the notion that I could produce the MAJORITY of what I needed by following this method, but I sure felt better prepared for emergencies.

So I just read a two-part essay by an economist on a precious metals site trashing the idea of "little teeny farms." I think the guy is WAY off base in his assumptions.

Here's the essay. What do you think?

http://www.24hgold.com/english/news...Lewis&article=2764371006G10020&redirect=False

http://www.24hgold.com/english/news...Lewis&article=2779601134G10020&redirect=False

 

[Wifezilla]

The guy is a jerk. Makes all kind of generalizations, and is very insulting.

Obviously he never heard of this place...
http://urbanhomestead.org/

He also seems to be stuck on mono-culture. Poly-culture gets you much better yields, more food diversity, provides proper waste management and natural fertilization.
http://www.polyfacefarms.com/

Over on TheEasyGarden us tiny farmers are keeping track of our expenses and yields. I have a spread sheet I am tracking things with. Whether or not any of us can claim complete sustainability is yet to be seen. I DO know that the quality of food I get is WAY better than what I get at the store. My ducks have paid for themselves already this year due to me selling hatching eggs. When I figure in what we used for personal consumption, we really come out ahead.

 

[noobiechickenlady]

I agree, a bit of a pain, but he does make a few good points.

The real advantages, as I see it, are from abandoning the European grean/meat/dairy pattern altogether. We should have a lot less meat, a lot less dairy, somewhat less grains and more vegetables. This would tend to solve the farming issue the easy way, just don't do it. About 70% of the us grain production goes to feed livestock for meat. If you have fewer livestock (much fewer, like 70% less) and that livestock is grassfed instead of grainfed, then your grain farming needs basically go away.

While I don't agree completely with less meat & less dairy, but rather less grain fed meat & dairy, I do agree that we should dramatically decrease the grains & replace with veggies & grass.

Of course WZ, he must have never heard of the Path to Freedom folks since he would have used them as an example for the above. They pretty much follow Masanobu Fukuoka's path in their own way.

I think this guy has his head up in the clouds. He realizes the way it can work, but doesn't see it in action. Then he goes back and says that you would need at least 20 acres to provide for a family of 4 & have any surplus. Baloney!

This reminds me of the $64 Tomato. Only not as funny.

 

[Wifezilla]

We should have a lot less meat, a lot less dairy, somewhat less grains and more vegetables.

This also shows a complete ignorance of human evolution, nutritional requirements, and understanding of proper animal husbandry.

Meat and meat animals are not a problem. CAFOs with improperly raised meat animals IS a problem.

The use of dairy was a huge evolutionary advantage to our ancestors. Properly raised dairy cows are not a problem. Again, factory farming IS a problem, but it isn't the cows that are the issue.

As for grains, I just don't eat them. Somewhat less? Try a lot less.

As for more vegetables, maybe I can agree with him on that. But how many people count corn and potatoes as vegetables?

 

[noobiechickenlady]

Good points. Essentially I think the guy is bogging down in the details when he should get outside & learn something about how it really works. There is an article on Backwoods home about a $1 garden. Now, that $1 garden did not provide all the food the folks ate, it sure supplemented it for a good portion of the year. And they certainly did not use much land. Most of the money went into seeds. No lights, they used the sun & recycled plastic & glass bottles for mini-greenhouses, no fertilizer, they used animal manure & grass clippings. Cheap!

Folks who overthink these things (like I believe this guy did) tend to think inside rigid boxes & get bogged down in details, not thinking about intercropping, successive planting, living mulches that double as food crops or fertilizers, recycling yard "waste" and plain old human ingenuity.

I'm sitting on two acres and I know I could feed my family practically year round from it, barring such things as coffee, sugar, rice & any other grains. I would also have surplus to sell or trade for those things I can't grow on my place, if I wanted them. The coffee for sure It would take some work, but it could sure be done.

Cascadiana, I neglected to welcome you! Hope you enjoy it around here and thanks for the article.

 

[Cascadiana]

Thank you, NCL, for your warm Southern hospitality and welcome! I hope my other posts thus far are also helpful.

I wonder if this economist has ever knelt in the dirt, dug a hole, and planted a seed -- then watered it and watched over it until it became a green living thing with an ECONOMIC value, however minuscule and meaningless in the grand scheme of the downturn it appears to someone with his Ivy League education and pretensions.

(Sorry, I was an English teacher and get carried away with all those multi-syllabic words.)