How much land do you reckon you need to be entirely self sufficient?

Question

A P - Its just me, Im not startin my own country.

Answer 1

50 acres maybe.

Answer 2

About an acre

Answer 3

According to biodiversity experts, 1-2.5 hectares, or 3-6 acres.

Answer 4

If you have all four seasons you will need an 18 acre wood lot just to have a supply of firewood to stay warm and cook with, (maybe this is too self sufficient for you)

Another 3 to five acres for your animals, (the ones you are going to slaughter for food), and a really big garden for veggies.

If you want a milk cow you need 5 acres just for her, goats are better. You can let them graze your wood lot and keep the brush knocked down and the trees trimmed up as high as they can reach.

You need to make money too, so someone will have to work at least part time or be really handy with some sort of craft that they can sell.

There are a lot of other things to consider, but I won't go any further.

Answer 5

I'd like to know that.  Self sufficiency is the way forward.

Answer 6

It depends on what is on the land. Do you have a water source? What is the climate like? I live on 20 acres but water would be a problem. Growing crops would be difficult without adequate water as would raising live stock. If we could build a wind generator we could pump up the water into our cistern but who knows how much is there.? It gets really cold in the winter and really hot in the summer here.

Answer 7

An acre is supposed to be possible, for food; but Carl Sagan said

"To bake an apple pie, you must first create the Universe"

Answer 8

The answer varies by orders of magnitude.

A half acre of nile delta land will produce more food than 100 acres of nearby desert. or arctic tundra.

I do not mean nobody can survive on desert or tundra, or west Texas dust bowl land. Land that is a shallow smear of soil over rock, or is acidic sand and gravel or soil composed from limestone, or has salinity coming to the surface... hey all of those places can produce some food, but often very little.

If you ask this question of Australian outback people and someone on agricultural class 1 land, they have to give you numbers so far apart that you can not use the number you get for any purpose.

Answer 9

it is not possible unless you have a source of salt.

If you do, a few acres will be enough.

Answer 10

1,500 acres.

Answer 11

MaceRally nailed it.  Give her the ten points.

It's not an amount of land, it is the ability of that land to produce what you need.

And the amount of work you're willing to put into making that land produce what you need.

Answer 12

well lets hope its less than 2 hectares, because thats how much farmable land there is per person if you averaged it out.

Answer 13

About an acre as long as there is a river running through it. Someone mentioned having to have salt and a woods for fuel but those could be bartered for if you could grow excess food to your requirements. I would also be vegetarian apart from the odd chicken as this would save on grazing land.

Answer 14

I have a 2.5 acre building site, only coffee don't grow well here in Michigan, so 99.99% is the best I can do.