What a fantastic infographic. A bit hard for us metric minded, but in the end we still use and understand acres. It's from http://1bog.org/blog/live-off-the-land-2/ -(go there for the full version, the one you can read). We managed 3 people on 2081 sq metres (with a goat and chooks) in our 2005 experiment, on 3 acres. I hope to feed more than just us this year.
What do you need? Adequate water, a suitable climate, good soil, preparedness to start again when the first, second and third times don't work, arms of steel and a husband/wife who's happy to come along for the ride :)
4 comments:
It helps if you also own your own home...
I've just moved from my own house (and of course the raspberries, apples and mulberries have started fruiting just after!) to back to renting.
The upside is a cycle commute and walking to school, but the downside is not being able to tackle some of these things, like solar panels.
I love this!!
Although, I must say for just my husband and I, we are getting away with a small patch in the backyard since we are in a rental....
Ahhh, one day we will have acreage!
Amazing, here i was thinking i needed 20 acres
We have 3.5 acres and we produce our own meat, dairy, eggs and vegetables, but not wheat (though I'd like to), but we also derive our income from it with a market garden.
What the infographic doesn't mention is the limiting factors - water (a lot of water to produce all that) and in one of the driest countries... and soil. Australia has, for the very most part, depleted soils which are not suited to high intensity production. But, with sufficient external inputs can be bought to a level in which they are.
If you were working on a closed system, eg, you're starting off from a strong nutrient base and composting waste, passing it through animals before using it as fertilisers etc and not exporting anything offsite, you could probably sustain it. I spend a lot of time thinking about exactly this :-)
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