Food Cultivation Data

Hello I am new here and my name is not Tamaratamara, but it is Tamara and i'd like to say a big hello to all you fabulous permaculturists

I am need of some help if and if any of you can offer any, I will be more than grateful.

I help run a new project called The Freeman League and we are in the process of planning the first of what will be hopefully a large number of off grid modern sustainable communities. We are trying to gather real data with regards to exactly how much food you will need per household. Here is the post, so you can see what we need help with...

Can anyone here research the required area needed to grow a housholds food requirements. We will need realistic figures, not just maximums. We need to know how much can be grown successfully indoors and what must be grown outside. Also, although not specificaly food, wood production and consumption figures will be needed for heating and power. Of course many trees will provide both food and fuel. Ideas and data please?



If any of you know anything about this, we would really appreciate all/any knowledge you may have.

Our website is www.thefreemanleague.com if any of you want to see what we are doing.

Thank you in advance 

Much Love
Tamara x x x

it would be helpful to know the general area that you are building these communities in, topography, zone, etc. Would you be growing only food for people, or food for animals as well? is it a zone that requires winter heat or summer cooling..etc.

mother earth magazine had some good information in their magazine a few months ago on feeding yourself off of a small garden..you might check it out on their website

You might get in touch with Marcin Jakubowski. He has compiled a lot of similar data, and seems to have similar goals & inclinations. Even better, his project is committed to the sharing of information. I'm sure the body of data he has collected could be improved by an outside perspective.

Open Source Ecology

Another source of data that I can highly recommend, is Rob over at the One Straw blog. He has recently put in a large plot of permaculture potatoes and built a prototype of a Jean Pain-style methane digester. He also has plans to sustainably grow fuel wood. He has thoroughly researched the theoretical yields of these systems, but he is also testing them (if you'll pardon the pun) in the field, and if his documentation continues to be as high-quality as I've seen in the past, it will be of tremendous help to you.

One Straw

Brenda Groth wrote:
it would be helpful to know the general area that you are building these communities in, topography, zone, etc. Would you be growing only food for people, or food for animals as well? is it a zone that requires winter heat or summer cooling..etc.

mother earth magazine had some good information in their magazine a few months ago on feeding yourself off of a small garden..you might check it out on their website

Thank you Brenda 

We will be growing food for about 40 people (to start with), but will not be keeping animals to farm, we will have a few chickens for eggs, but that would probably be it (we were considering more but will require even more land and is not possible atm).

Joel
Thank you so much for those links-I am going to check them out right now! 

Thank you both for your speedy replies-it is much appreciated.

Tamara x x x

I recommend the publications by Ecology Action, which has done a lot of work on how to grow nearly complete diets in the smallest possible space, also, the book "One Circle" by David Duhan, devoted to this subject.

Ecology Actions pamphlets: http://www.bountifulgardens.org/products.asp?dept=104

One Circle:  http://www.bountifulgardens.org/prodinfo.asp?number=BEA-0370

There have been other discussions on this topic, but I just want to point out that you are going to make your life more difficult if you don't include a serious animal presence.  Animals are the processors of plant life.   

Of course, if you are doing just a huge garden that will be actively tended at all times, you can probably get away with not using animals - but then you're working very hard.

Thank you both, in fact thank you all, in less than 48 hrs you guys have helped us in many ways! 

Tamara x x x