How much land would one need in order to live off of it via subsistence farming, living off the grid,?

Question

homesteading for a family of five?

Answer 1

It would depend on what you want to do with the land. You can purchase a generator for electricity. You will need much more land if you plan on raising animals for beef, pork, chicken, milk, etc. If you happen to be a vegetarian it takes much less land to just raise things for a family of five. However if you live in an area that actually has a winter you will want enough land to grow enough vegetables to preserve that will sustain you throughout the winter. I would say about 9-10 acres at the very least.

Answer 2

For a family of five only 2.5 acre of land is sufficient enough if you adopt Integrated farming System.

Answer 3

it depends on the size of your family and to your decesion

Answer 4

First make a list of all or your needs.  Is this farm going to be your only source of income?  Or do you just want it to supply all of your food for the family?  The answer to this question is going to make a big difference in the amount of land required.  If you or your husband has an outside job or a trust fund, or a lot of money saved to take care of things like clothing, schooling for the children, health care, transportation, and other essentials you will need money for, your land requirements will be a lot more simple.  Also consider where you are located.  For example you would need a lot less land in California than you would need in Montana.  

For your food needs you would need to raise two steers, maintain a milk cow or about three milk goats, about four pigs, a small flock of chickens for eggs and meat, maybe a sheep or two or meat goats, depending on your tastes. You can buy dairy steers of orphaned beef calves cheaper than trying to maintain cows and a bull. I would want to raise all of my animals free range, so you would need about ten acres of good grass, part of which you could save for hay to get your animals through the winter months.  Also you could over seed your pasture with winter rye grass or wheat to provide a lot of winter grazing. You will need a couple of acres of wheat for flour for your bread.  One acre of a well managed vegetable garden should keep you in fresh vegetables and have enough left over to preserve by canning or freezing for the winter.  One more acre for an orchard with several apple trees, cherries, peaches and or oranges depending on where you live, some blackberry and raspberry plants, strawberry plants, and a grape arbor. If you are depending on your farm as the only source of income, you will have to expand some of these products enough to sell as well as feed your family, depending on your needs.

Answer 5

I would say around 5 acres. There are tremendous varieties of products to raise to buy off farm products like salt, vehicles and parts ... I've raised mushrooms in an oak flat next to the stream w/ water from, rabbits for meat and sell, aricana chickens for "Easter eggs" (also cholesterol free eggs from them, very high selling). I haven't seen fish mentioned above, an acre pond is great swimming, water, food source. Most self sufficient steer away from cattle, they are expensive and take up huge amounts of graze and excess feed. Most stick to goats for milk and meat (other than fish and poultry). As motioned otherwise above, fruit, intensive gardening everything in a small, self-sufficient farm is intensive. double dug, wide, raised planting beds are much easier to maintain, double production, extend production into colder months by making it easier to cover. I've even used rabbit hutches over my a resting bed for fertilizer. I've used portable chicken pens to sit on a resting bed for bug/weed control, I've surrounded my 40 by 40 garden w/ a 4' H, 4'W chicken/duck run that kept many bugs away, is wide enough most deer will not try to jump and allows waste runoff to go into the garden. Plant fruit trees to the north and west of garden for windbreaks and late sun relief and extend crops through the dog days, man it just goes on and on and on.

5 acres will do it and it is manageable and enjoyable.