RE: [100% veg*n ] Land required for vegan self sufficiency- some questions &food for thought...

[Guest guest]

the main problem to me is..there is no universal answer...wot works in

birmingham isn't neccesarily going to work in rome or beijing or san francisco

but..we have to and can keep trying

as for fuel..solar..wind and other viable options exist..

in the mountains of south america, they are testing out solar cookers...

 

Sharon Gordon <gordonse wrote:

 

>I haven't come across a good permaculture answer to this question. I'd like to

>see some for different questions, from garden of eden quality land and growing

>conditions to near desert with depleted soil.

>

>Biointensive gardeners have worked on the question some. Some of the results

>are in the book One Circle: How to Grow a Complete Diet in Less Than 1000

>Square Feet, by David Duhon. Their prototype diets are designed for the

>Pacific Northwest of the US, so the growing conditions match fairly well

>for much of the UK. The one place I have found that reliably has the book

>is http://www.bountifulgardens.org . They also have the Mexican and

>Kenyan diet plan pamphlets mentioned below.

>

>The smallest diet they came up with was for a woman(125 pound) and used 550

>square

>feet in an 8 month growing season. All the nutritional requirements were

>met with potatoes, sunflower seeds, onions, turnips(root and greens),

>parsnips and garlic.

>

>The smallest area for a man(150 pound) uses 855 square feet. The nutritional

>requirements were met with filberts(hazelnuts), potatoes, collards,

>parsnips, and garlic.

>

>To get a more appealing diet for a couple using 2800 square feet together,

>the crops they used were wheat, garlic, sunflower seeds, potatoes,

>onions, parsley, turnips, collards, parsnips, and filberts.

>

>They have also come up with some alternate designs, and some designs

>which use warmer climate crops for Mexico and Kenya.

>

>An advantage of several people working together is that you can get more

>variety, especially if you would like to have some tree fruits.

>

>In his work, as well as related work by John Jeavons, who wrote

>How to Grow More Vegetables than you ever thought possible on

>less land than you can imagine(6th ed should be out soon), they do give

>information

>about creating and maintaining soil fertility which requires some

>additional land.

>

>Improvement can be gained by using the season extension techniques of

>Eliot Coleman. Although this requires extra infrastructure in terms of

>green house and row cover, it spreads out

>the labor of harvest time, much more evenly, and keeps food fresh since

>it can be harvested daily. It also doesn't require any fuel to heat the

>greenhouse.

>

>Similarly to Graham, I'd like to see the self-sufficiency issues extended

>to include

>the items he listed plus more such as

>

>Fuel for heat, transportation, soap making, clothes making,

> dehydrating food if needed in climate, light etc

>Wood for repair, share of new building, furniture, toys, tools

>Medicinal, dye, culinary herbs

>Additional planned food to share with guests, account for average wildlife

>damage,

> stockpile for bad years, and swap with people who grow other things

>Consideration of extra calories that might be needed for an active gardening

> lifestyle

>Food or other items for income

>Cloth for clothes replacement as well as other cloth needs

>Paper, toilet paper

>Fibers or other items for containers, house hold items, craft items for

>family or sale

>Oil crops for soap making

>Flowers for beauty and honey and beeswax(I realize some vegans use honey

>and beeswax

> and others consider it nonvegan)

>

>Beyond the basics, one might also include fuel for generating electricity or

>items to generate income to buy items that help generate electricity.

>

>Crops might vary widely depending on how one is solving an issue.

>For instance if you are using boats for transportation, growing wood and

>waterproofing materials could be different from growing bamboo for

>a bicycle frame plus some cash crops to buy the rims and tires.

>

>A lot of thought can be put into what you could grow to make the items

>you use every day or what might be grown to get cash to get the

>items that can't be grown in your area when there is not a good growable

>alternative.

>

>It's also interesting to approach the question from another angle. Say

>I have 1/4 acre of land around my house. How much of my food, fuel,

>and compost crops can I grow for my family? And I would focus on

>these since they are daily needs. I can't find my notes, but I think

>that the average person needs about 2 pounds of cotton per year

>to replace their clothes, so growing this somewhere else, and

>shipping it would have less of an effect than shipping the day's

>food supply every day.

>

>Another thing to look at is what positive side effects there might be

>by growing most of one's own food. It could be that some of the

>things needed now wouldn't be needed with a different lifestyle.

>For instance a person planning might ask, " What kind of herbs

>could I grow to substitute for migraine medication? " But what if

>they looked at a broader picture and asked a different question?

> " What if I gardened, ate healthy, exercised, worked for a health-

>oriented non-abusive boss 2 days a week, and didn't have migraines...

>what would I plant under those conditions? "

>

>Alternative solutions could reduce fuel needs too. If a house was

>designed to reduce heating and cooling needs, and if more efficient

>stoves or solar ovens were used, less land would be need to grow

>fuel. For efficient stoves from local and recycled materials see

>the work of Aprovecho http://www.efn.org/~apro/ . For

>solar ovens see http://solarcooking.org/ .

>

>Or if I ate 60% of my food raw instead of 40%, how much less fuel

>would I need to grow?

>

>To me it's important to look at what you are trying to replace.

>It can be important to choose the level of replacement. For instance

>if a person is working to replace the unhealthy typical western diet with

>an unhealthy similar vegan version, they are likely to be doing less

>environmental and personal damage yet they could improve this greatly

>and likely use a smaller amount of land. For example, deep fried tempeh

>with a side order of french fries is a level of improvement over a

>cheeseburger and fries. Vegetable bean soup could improve things

>to another level. Most vegans are aware of the land saved by using

>plants for food rather than animals. But the tempeh and fries meal would

>take more resources than

>carefully chosen ingredients for a vegetable bean soup. One reason for

>this is that oil crops tend to take large amounts of land. Plus a person

>who eats lots of deep fried tempeh with fries tends to need more

>medical resources than a person who eats healthier meals.

>

>Some people who are looking at more aspects of the amount of land it

>takes to live a vegan lifestyle are Jim Merkel and Erica Sherwood.

>At present they are growing some of their food, and trying to buy

>most of it locally, transporting it by bicycle. Info on their

>work is at http://www.globallivingproject.org/ .

>

>The only person I know of who has tried to grow a complete vegan diet

>for a person and collect data on it is Albie Miles. A summary of the

>data from one season is shared at http://www.cityfarmer.org/albie.html .

>He used biointensive gardening methods.

>

>Sharon

>gordonse

>

>

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