Infographic: How Big a Backyard Would You Need to Live Off the Land?
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By Dave Llorens
Without getting hung up on the specifics (clearly one size doesn’t fit all) this is a nice graphic illustrating the possibilities of meeting your own needs. No matter how much or little you can do, I think it is worth it to: 1) know where your food is really coming from, 2) minimize the travel footprint of your food, 3) get really fresh, happy produce, 4) provide yourself with regular, quality time outdoors, 5) lower your food costs by SOME amount, 6)do the right thing for the earth, and maybe most importantly 7) provide an example to your friends, families, and neighbors how easy it can be to do all of the above great stuff. The way I see it, it’s a winner for everybody.
Thanks for the graphic!
The information regarding the solar power is woefully inaccurate, preposterous, to say the least.
The only way to obtain seven hours of sunlight is to have a very pricey double-gymbal tracking system – and live in Arizona or some such: learn about insolation, please.
Secondly, assuming the figure of 11 MWh/year is accurate, that boils down to 30kw/hr per day. To produce 30 kw/hr per day, reliably, would require at the very least 10 kilowatts of panels (and probably more) That’s 40 240 watt panels, each of which is going to run about $400 installed, at least. Got $16,000? And if you want this off the grid, then you better fork over about $30,000 in batteries.
It’s bad information like this that cause folks to waste money: please, become educated on the basics before you start spreading ill-informed data like this to the masses.
The suggested square footage for animals is small enough to be counter productive in addition to being cruel. If you want to cram animals into this small of a space, just buy from a confinement – they’ll do that better than you will.
Raising the animals with a healthy amount of space wouldn’t require a huge amount more of land, and would pay back in increased fertility of the land itself and better productivity of the animals.
[...] Returning to a state of living off the land and self-sustainability is a big trend in some areas of the country today. Being able to create everything you need in regards to food and leaving the grocery stores behind is a tempting thought to some, but just how much land would you actually need to be able to survive? [VIA] [...]
This is a great graphical representation of the answer to a question I’ve long considered regarding how much space living self-sufficiently would actually take. I wonder if other grains such as quinoa, millet, and amaranth yield higher amounts of protein per square foot than corn and wheat. I do not have the answer, but I suppose one can just look it up. If a family were to cut out dairy and meat products, would that further reduce the footprint? Some of the grains must be grown for the animals, after all, as feed. Growing high-protein grains, climbing and bush beans of all types, squash, and other high protein veggies would take space, but would it equal, exceed, or be less than the additional space freed up by having no animals? Curious, as I do know some vegan families.
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If .44 acres is needed PER person for vegetables, then is the final 2 acres (or 1.5 acres) the amount PER person? That is not made clear.
You can provide all the food you need for a family of 4 in a lot less space than 2 acres. Vertical growing, green roofs, and high intensity techniques like aquaponics can produce enormous amounts of food in very small foot prints. If you can provide small greenhouses with HID lighting (preferably from a off-the-grid power source)to produce 24 hours of growing light coupled with aquaponics and careful plant selection, you can significantly speed up the food production. This should be coupled with a good hot composting and vermiculture to close the waste loop and provide nutrient supplementation for heavier nutrient using fruits and vegetables. Don’t forget about the indoor space too. CFL’s and LED lights can grow food inside for a lot lower energy and initial cost than the “weed grower’s” big HID’s, which require a lot of cooling air circulation. If you look beyond the traditional ways of doing things and use the technology we have developed in smarter ways, there’s a tremendous amount of improvement in productive capacity per square foot to be gained.
Infoгmatіve aгticle, exactly whаt I was loοκing fοr.