I have a question for anyone with experience in farming or growing their own crops.

What is the least number of acres one person would need to grow enough crops to feed himself every year? Naturally, I'm assuming the soil is fertile, that I don't experience any droughts or twisters and I can afford the proper kind of seeds.

I was thinking about 40 acres. Then again, I've never tried farming. Is 40 enough or too much?

Thanks

I've read that one acre of potatoes would feed one person for a year. It might depend on how varied a diet you want, but if you have good land, you'd be surprised at how much you could grow on an acre. It might also depend on where you live, the climate, and the growing season, but I imaging one person grow all he needed on two acres at the most and have a varied diet. 40 acres is way more than one person would need.

Probably quite different for subsistence eating, beans or potatoes

compared to varied diet living style with a hen house, fish pond, dairy goats, etc.

Helps to have various kinds of old fruit trees. When an old fruit tree delivers, it is more then one family can manage. Okay, maybe two of each kind.

I must admit I am spoiled by summer fruits in the Winter from Chile.

Cheaper and better quality then the American crops in the Summer. Esp. Cherries.

I am spoiled by an up-scale grocery store 1/2 mile away on residential streets, and the ability to decide in an instant, what I want to have for dinner.

We have some rancher/farmer types here on Board. Don't make me call you out. Chime in please.

Interesting question.

Moi

Farmer's Heart, City Boy's Wants

I agree with Slammr, 40 acres is much more than needed to support one person... but then let's look at the realities of farming or even gardening. There are a LOT of factors completely out of the control of the farmer, freak weather, pestilence, diseases, varmints, vandals, etc. etc. etc.

In the last few years, EVERY YEAR, I have seen our weather patterns go to BIZARRE extremes, increadibly warm "winter" days that reach the 80 degree mark, followed by intense winter storms and sub freezing temperatures. I have several fruit and nut trees on my property, and last year I DID NOT HARVEST a single plum. The late frost killed every blossom before it became fruit. Gophers, bugs, deer, rabbits and sparrows got everything, every damn thing. I have about five arable acres, and cannot afford the water bills to actually try to farm or garden here, last year my summer water bills were around $300 every month, and that was just to keep the trees alive. If I had to live off what I could have grown here, I would have starved to death.

I have seriously considered "hydroponic" gardening, it SOUNDS like a great idea... http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/ http://americanaquaponics.com/ but if it really were such a great idea, why isn't it catching on with other people?

It entirely depends on what you are growing, and if you are including your mortgage for buying the land, upkeep for your property. What climate are you planting in? How many harvests can you count on? Spring harvest? Fall harvest? Winter harvest? And on and on it goes.

If you have fertile ground, are willing to limit your protein intake to only once or twice a week, you can survive on a fairly small patch of ground. Some would say less than an acre for a mixed crop of vegetables, a chicken coop, and a few goats and/or pigs. You would have to do a lot of salting, curing, canning, and dehydrating to get through the winter months, but if you lived lean, you could do it.

If you also need to pay for that property, and pay for electricity, upkeep, medical bills, and the rest, then 40 to 180 acres is more like it. I know a lot of farmers who have a tough time making that much land pay their bills. With property that large, you would need heavy machinery, or at least heavy work animals. Your costs for maintaining both your property, and what is on your property goes up exponentially. The bigger the land, the larger the yearly costs for running it. Out of that upkeep needs to come enough money to pay the bank for the mortgage, your medical expenses, your food, gas, electricity, and the rest.

The answer is keep it small. A half acre, to two acres is probably enough for one person to live off of, if they own the property outright, and don't care about things like electricity, running water, paying taxes or participating in western medicine.

The smallest working farms I know of, that can support themselves, without the need for a government handout, are usually around the 40 to 60 acre range. Mixed crop and livestock. There is usually a family of five to seven that work it though. Most farmers struggle with even larger properties. I know one farmer with almost 1000 acres of land, who still goes on unemployment during the winter months, and will occasionally take up part time jobs to bridge his income gap.

What you are asking is difficult math. There is a reason that agriculture is now taught at the university level. Yes, even farmers have to become the Harvard elite, just to make their farms sustainable.

If you are thinking of living off the grid, like a Montana wild-man, then I think 1/2 to 2 or 3 acres would cover it. A little winter hunting ought to round out the protein for a healthy diet.

I was thinking of potatoes, green beans, peas, lettuce, broccolli, spinach, tomatoes, beets, cauliflower, other kinds of beans, etc

When I was a kid, we lived on an acre, dad had two milk goats, rabbits, chickens, a couple ducks, we had fruit trees, corn in the back quarter acre, plus all the veg from carrots and eggplant to potatoes and peas. The folks canned or froze just about everything we ate. I know mom did not make bread and if we wanted meat other then rabbit and chicken, we also bought things like coffee, sugar, flour, but I am going to guess about 70% of what we ate came from that acre, there were 5 of us.

I garden today and it does not take much land to have a garden and put all your produce on the table. By rotating crops, planting so that your crop is harvested throughout the season, canning what you cant eat you should be able to do this on less that half an acre. Add a pig, goats, rabbits, chickens, you can produce much of what you need on an acre of land.

We had sandy soil in SFV so our growing season was most of the year. Here in Wisconsin we don't plant until May 15th, but for the last several years I have had a garden and you would be surprised at how little space you need for a great garden.

River

it depends where you live...in oregon 1 acre is more than enough to provide everything

i grow a lot and waste alot...there is just me and i cant eat it all

sweet corn is especially bad...if you plant a row...it will get overripe before i can eat it all

i have a 1/4 acre of peach trees and it produces 150 25 # boxes a year

my 100 foot row of strawberries produces all i need if the birds dont eat them

a 100 foot row of potatoes will grow 400 #s of potatoes

a 50 ft row of sweet corn will produce so much corn i cant can it all

1 acre of wheat grows 3 ton of wheat enough to heat my house during the winter

i always plant 50 ft of tomatoes that produce from july till november 1st most years..i eat a lot of tomatoes

MacTheWolf (imported) wrote: Tue Mar 20, 2012 2:28 am I was thinking of potatoes, green beans, peas, lettuce, broccolli, spinach, tomatoes, beets, cauliflower, other kinds of beans, etc

I would say If you were to add a coop of about a dozen hens for eggs, and the occasional chicken dinner, then add a couple of goats for milk, you could live quite well on 1 and 1/2 or 2 acres. Keep half set aside to graze your goats, and the rest for growing your food. Chickens don't need very much of an area. A small garden shed sized space would do.

You'd have to do a lot of canning. You can can the peas, green beans, broccoli

MacTheWolf (imported) wrote: Tue Mar 20, 2012 2:28 am , tomatoes, beets, cauliflower,

and you can dry other beans for later use. Lettuce and spinach don't can very well, but you can freeze spinach for a short while. Consider adding some corn, carrots, cucumbers and dill to what you grow. For fruit you could grow strawberries and raspberries, they can be canned or made into jelly. Rhubarb can also be grown quite easily. It is like a weed, and will come back every year.

Living like that will be very labor intensive. You'll be weeding, tilling, canning, preserving, milking, and everything else non stop. It would not be a life of leisure. It would be hard, constant work, but it is feasible.

On top of all that, you would still need an income to buy anything you can't grow yourself. You'll need flour, yeast, salt, pectin for jellies, vinegar and spices for pickling, grain for your chickens. You'll need butter and oil for cooking. You may also have to budget for some mild pesticides, and fertilizers for when years get hard. You would also have to allow for years when your crop is killed off by hail, tornadoes, locust, whatever. You don't want one bad year to be the end of you.

Be sure that you have enough land to rotate. Switch grazing land and growing land every four to five years. This allows that you don't drain all the nutrients out of your soil, and are left with barren earth. The goats and chickens will offer some ready made fertilizer, even if you don't eat them, they can still be useful. You should also be sure to compost all of your waste. That compost will come in handy during planting.

You'll need a good garden tiller, good fences (don't want the goats getting in your garden.) and traps for pests.

A lot of stuff you'd need, you wouldn't know you need until you need it. There is no rule book for this kind of survival. Expect to need some kind of income to do this. If you don't have an income, consider bumping the number of hens you have up to 50 or 60 and sell the extra eggs. I know a lot of people in rural areas that make extra income by selling their farm fresh eggs. They take a trip into town once a week to sell at the local farmer's market. A dozen farm eggs will sell for about $5. A good laying hen will lay about an egg a day or every other day. If you have 60 hens you'll have 20 to 35 dozen eggs a week to sell. That's another $100 to $175 per week income. Enough to buy any extras you might need.

Is all this just a mental exercise, or something you are seriously considering?

DeaconBlues (imported) wrote: Mon Mar 19, 2012 11:43 pm I have seriously considered "hydroponic" gardening, it SOUNDS like a great idea...

QUOTE]

Thinking of growing all you smoke, also, Deacon?

He has a point. We had a foreman up in Winnemucca who tried to be self-sufficient. First year there was very little. The Soil and Conservation guy said to buy bullshit and plow it in, which my friend did. Second year looked really good until the Mormon crickets finished everything off. Third year. Buy bullshit. Check. Plow it in. Check. Buy seeds and plant them. Check. Water crops. Check. Watch Mormon crickets have a feast. Check. Fourth year, go to supermarket.

I wonder if agriculture in the inland, drier parts of the west is different than places like Oregon and Wisconsin?

The climate in the Altiplano of Chile has changed for the drier in the last 50 years. Scattered subsistence guys have been driven into the city. The ruins of their little places that you find are tiny places. I think a very few acres at most would describe them. They also raised llama, alpaca and cui, so the idea of having animals probably helps make it viable.