Self sufficiency?

Question

what would be the minimum area of land that a family of 4 would need to become self sufficient in food

Answer 1

So much depends on where you live, how much effort you are prepared to put in and what you want to eat. I have just over an acre plot. It is Permaculture Designed so exceptionally productive. For all of the Spring, Summer and Autumn it feeds nine of us (myself, my parents, two brothers, their wives and  two kids).

The problem for us is providing enough food for winter. .  Even if we bottle or freeze our Summer excesses there is still not enough to last the whole of winter for us.

The Permaculture solution is to convert energy by having free ranging animals who store food as growth  (meat, eggs etc). Only the breeding animals are overwintered, the rest are killed for meat and we freeze for over winter. I plan to get some chickens, ducks and geese soon.

Whilst I started with planting fruit and nut trees, then perieniel  plants such as gooseberries and rhubarb, my planting is only young. In another couple of years we will have more plants and  bigger crops of tree fruits. The slow growing perieniels such as Asparagus will have started producing a crop.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permacultur...

Or follow the Permaculture Design Course month by month here

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Answer 2

Well if your drowing all your own food, I'd say around 20 acres...or more.   To plant all your crops and be able to spread them out in a vast area, also account that being self suffiecient you might want a wooded area also to cut firewood to burn in your wood burner in the colder winter months.

Answer 3

First off, I'm a small farmer, on a permaculture farm.  My husband and I grow most of our own food.

The answer is...it depends...a lot!  

Do you live in California, with an extremely long growing period, and can have a garden producing virtually all year long?  With intensive gardening, you could get by on just an acre, even less.  

Do you want to also raise your own meat animals?  If so, what do you want to raise?

Rabbits can produce more meat in less time, on less food, than a cow can.  Rabbits can be raised in a small area (the area of a small one car garage would keep you in meat rabbits).  However if you can only see your family eating beef, then you need a lot more land.

Do you live in an are with only a very short growing season?  I live in the high mountain desert area of Idaho.  My frost free growing season is a scant 90 days.  Corn is a 120 day crop.  Would you be willing to cut certain things out of your diet, if your growing season was wrong?

Are you also talking about raising your own dairy products?  A cow is going to require a large pasture area, and produce a lot more milk than a family of four can use.

Concider using two dairy goats instead.  If you have small children, who must have milk, daily, be sure to breed them, so they are producing kids (baby goats) about 6 months appart.  That way you will always have a goat producing milk.  However if your family can do without fresh milk for 1-3 months of the year, breed them to kid at the same time.

You can eat the male goats (just be sure to castrate them).  Goat meat is very good.

A family of four can manage on 5 acres, intesively managed.  That means you have fruit trees planted, instead of landscaping trees.  You have an asparagus bed, instead of a flower bed.  You have a small pasture area for goats, instead of a lawn.  

By the way, do you have any idea how labor intensive producing your own food is?  Find a used copy of Little House In The Big Woods, by Laura Ingalls Wilder.  Grab a highlighter pen, and give the book a read.  Any time they mention growing, optaining, preserving, cooking, storing, gathering food, highlight it.  That's what your life is going to be like.  

It is a complete LIFESTYLE change few are prepaired to make.  Your life will revolve around food, and the preserving of your harvest, so you have food to eat during the winter and spring months.

I can bake completely from scratch, right down to grinding the grain into flour.

I can food (only start with jams, and pickles at first, or you can kill your family).

I deydrate.

I butcher animals.

I can freeze foods.  Most people have this idea you go out in your garden, pick something, and pop it in the freezer.  Not true...you will have tastless garbage if you do that.  The enzimes in the fruits and vegtables continue to mature.  So you have to learn how to blanch things to freeze them.

I store grains and dried beans in large quantities.

I honestly know how to cook from scratch with the most basic, raw ingrediants.

I also have a kitchen equipted to do such food storage, preservation, and cooking.

We raise meat goats, and meat rabbits.  I also have a couple of dairy does for our milk/cheese/butter.  I'm concidering adding some chickens back this summer (I've had them in the past).

If you want to raise your own grains, such as wheat for your bread, you need a lot more land also.  Most people do not get into raising their own wheat.  It's very labor intensive to harvest.  Easier to buy it in bulk.  

Any questions, you can email me, or post them here.

~Garnet

Homesteading/Farming over 20 years

Answer 4

It is possible to become self sufficient in producing food, or nearly so. If you wish to become so, I encougage you to simply begin! Remember we are not isolated units, but social creatures. Being social we tend to form groups, within a group of like minded people food self suficiency becomes easier, seek out such a group.

I am producing nearly all my own food and meat, I trade my surplus with other producers in my area, mostly because, we all like variation.

I was not always self sufficient, though... I had to start somewhere... there was no "magic formula" amount of land that was a perfect amount for me. Self sufficiency comes over time, one becomes more and more sufficient by degrees, through exprience, through trial and error,  through actual work. The thing is to start, " the garden that is never planted yields no harvest", so I say, if you want to know how much land it takes,  take the amount of land it takes to sprout a seed, and add to it till you find the right amount for you. That amount may not always be the same each year, in fact, the amount of land it takes has decreased for me as I gain more exprience. It is useful to remember the nature of self sufficiency, that is...while self sufficiency is tied to "the land"... 20 or a 100 acres will not make one self sufficient, this is because self sufficiency is a way of life, when a family begins to live this way of life, self sufficiency comes no matter how much land is involved.

"To you the Earth yields her fruit,

If you but know how to fill your hands"

~Kahil Gibran

Answer 5

It will depend on the type of food you want, and the quality of the land.  

With a large garden you can have a kitchen garden, some fruit, bees and chickens.  An acre and you think of adding an orchard, ducks, goats and pigs.  More land and you can grow food for the livestock, and so on.  The more and larger the livestock the more land you need.  Anything up to 20 acres.

Answer 6

In the 1850's Irish farmers grew enough potatoes on 1/4 acre to feed 10 to 12 people a year.  One just has to have the land and like taters, lots of taters.

If you are a veggie, one acre will do it.  You just have to do it right. In 1905, my great grandparents grew ALL their own food, not much was bought from the store, lids for home canning and coffee, it won't grow in Michigan.  My dad say's they even made their own dog food, a type of corn meal bread.

Answer 7

We have a Permaculture Smallholding, I agree with Bohemian Garnet and You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet, it very much depends on where you live, what work you are prepared to put in and what you want to eat.

If you have a Vegetarian or Vegan diet you will find it much easier to live on a smaller amount of land, as animal's needs also have to be met even during winter, not just for food but also bedding.

For us, as Permaculturists, we seek to be self sufficient in all of our needs and to provide Permanent Culture/Agriculture (Permaculture) for future generations. From previous reading using Permaculture Design in the UK about half an acre is considered possible for one person to be totally self sufficient in food and an acre and a half for a family of four.

This Permaculture Design would include Aquaculture and seasonal planting as well as the less intensive orchard/fruit growing and perennials. However, this would probably be better suited to a vegetarian/vegan diet and not include traditional cereal crops such as wheat, as this would require much more land in my opinion.

If you want to be self sufficient in other areas, such as materials for building and furniture, fuel, timber, dealing with your own wastes ect I personally think you need a little over two acres per person in the UK so 8 acres plus for a family of four. Again this is entirely dependent on where you live, what you are prepared to do and what yields, you, personally need.

Permaculture links:

Answer 8

It's actually very small, but you'd have to grow algae in tanks of sea water.  Then you'd get away with about 20 square metres, i think, depending on how far from the equator you live.  Doing it by planting crops in soil is quite inefficient.