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Comment by groby_b | Hacker News Reader

This is a very naive take on the world. You'll need at the very least half an acre to feed yourself sustainably, and that's if you're highly optimized.

It's also backbreaking work, and you won't be able to do much else except subsistence farming.

In short, it's not practical for the vast majority of the population. The closest we can probably get to this model is instead CSA memberships, supporting farms right outside the dense urban areas which can leverage economies of scale to feed several hundred people.

I mean, sure, grow your spring onions, your herbs, and a tomato plant. It's nice. It keeps you connected to where food comes from. It's a yummy addition to your plate.

It won't feed you in an emergency, though.

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You can grow a surprising amount on even 0.1 acres. Here's a video where a family grows 6000 pounds on about 4000 square feet.

https://youtu.be/NCmTJkZy0rM

Granted, they have the whole family pitching in with the labor and it's a full-time job for them.

Is there a good resource for a reasonably educated individual on the theory of farming. That is the theory about growing any foodstuff or useful growable product (livestock,plants,edible mushrooms, even houseplants and pets) and selling those products. Managing the economics, top soil, automation, machine repair and maintenance.

Look for Storey's guides for things like basic country skills and small-scale animal husbandry (rabbit, goat, etc.) There is also probably an entire aisle of urban homesteading books to look through at the local bookstore.

Not many calories in what they're growing, either.

Note that it's fine to leave the supply of staples like wheat to large farmers with economies of scale, since that's heavily mechanized and doesn't require many workers, plus the workers it does rely on can be fairly effectively distanced. It's mostly the stuff like fresh fruit and vegetables which is the problem. Those are less reliant on economies of scale and more on cheap imported labour.

Exactly, I grew tomatoes in my flat few years back, was so choice picking a ripe tomato on christmas day grown indoors on a window ledge and no additional lighting needed.

Sure can't grow it all, but certainly makes a positive dent in my needs.

Yikes, you grew tomatoes indoors? How did you stand the smell?

Was not an issue at all.

I think this is also naive. You don't need an acre, nor is it backbreaking labour. The biggest time sink for home gardeners in my experience is watering, which you can solve by timed drip irrigation. Some plants like beans and peas are so easy to grow that they'll take over if you don't manage them. Potatoes are also pretty robust.

However, growing year-round is hard. It's relatively easy to feed yourself over the summer/fall if you're dedicated, but maintaining enough to feed your family over the winter is much more difficult and requires planning (and if anything goes wrong you lose the crop).

The biggest advantage for me is growing crops which are very expensive in stores and are easily wasted - like bagged salads, tomatoes that taste good, etc. Plus you can pick weird heritage varieties. We get a small veg box once a week and a small plot in our garden and we rarely buy vegetables when we go shopping.

> like bagged salads, tomatoes

salads, tomatoes are extremly wasteful form of transporting water so the benefit of growing your own is enormous

Well, yes, I was specifically speaking to the self-sustainable part. (And really, growing enough to eat year round? Yeah, it's back breaking. Not when you're 20 or 30, but come back to me when you're in your 50s :)

I'm totally in favor of growing the things that you mention - and combined with a CSA, it's the best of both worlds.

But I really, really, wouldn't want to grow all the staples myself and be dependent on it.

Here's an idea, put everyone's half acres together, then use automation to reduce the labour needed, freeing people to do other useful work! We can share the food, and share the labour!

This will work as long as some malevolent dick doesn't come along and decide they want more than their fair share ...

It'll be a common area people can share. We'll just need to avoid any sort of tragedy.

luckily there has been some research on averting such tragedies: https://wle.cgiar.org/content/elinor-ostrom-%E2%80%9Cnon-tra...

To be fair, they did say "a bit more self-sufficient". I have a half-dozen raised garden beds, herbs and fruit trees on a very standard-sized suburban block. I can cook occasional meals that are largely from the garden and definitely supplement staples (protein, pasta/rice from the shop). In recent weeks, I've paid more attention to sowing seeds and looked at adding chickens. With reliably laying chickens, we could do a meal/day at least.

What is your take on vertical farming [1]? If this was more widespread, we could take large loads off the farming sector and support the promise of grown local benefits.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_farming

Vertical farming takes just as much labor as horizontal farming and the capital expenses are higher. The economics only work for highly perishable luxury crops, not staples.

OK, i'm not saying we all grow all our own food, but certainly a little helps and a step in the right direction and you can bet many will avenue that and what they can in the times ahead now.

Certainly growing your own herbs in a flat very sustainable.

OMG Garden in Auckland is an urban garden that produces 1000NZD per week in commercial produce sales. They think they can get to 1400 per week.

Small <500 sqm plot between buildings.

They have full time farmer.

Is that 1,000 NZD profit, or revenue? It also looks heavily reliant on volunteer effort, basically free labor.

Revenue I think. They have a full time farmer. I don't have all the details, but I think it's main focus is education and as a model.

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