FoodAbundance
4 HN mentions · mentioned in 4 months, 2015–2020
8:39 · 3.3M views · Mar 21, 2012
A short film about the Dervaes family, who grow over 6,000 pounds of food a year on a tenth of an acre near downtown Los Angeles. They grow more than 400 plant species, keep chickens and ducks, and get most of their food from the plot.
HN cites it as proof of how much food a very small urban plot can produce.
4 comments from Hacker News
Agreed, but industrial agribusiness is predicated on huge automation and the idea that one farmer can farm hundred or thousands of acres. That's an efficient use of labor, but not of acres. We might be getting to the point that land is more valuable than labor and thus it makes sense to spend more human effort per acre than in the past. Here are people in LA that grow a huge amount of food in their backyard, 1/10 of an acre: this video Here's a guy in Canada that makes a legit living urban farming 1/3 of an acre: [LINK] There are tons of additional examples on youtube of other people doing very similar things. The point, though, is that it's very intensive on a labor per acre basis. You can't do this kind of farming with big tractors over thousands of acres with just a few people, you need several people per acre for it to work. But it does work! Yes there is a limit eventually, but the point isn't as low as you think.
To add to this, folks like this family claim (or were when that video[1] was done) to harvest 6,000 lbs of food a year from a 1/10th of an acre and still have enough left over to sell to local chefs to the tune of about $20,000. The more I read about this the more I started doubting all the doom about sustainability. Granted, I think they were vegetarian (still had live birds for eggs) but.. I think the combination of pooling together ancient techniques with modern technology could provide better results than the "if GMO & Roundup are eliminated the WORLD WILL STARVE" type of propaganda that, the more I read up about things like Agent Orange and, well, propaganda, the more I want to hear from people like the Dervais kids (RIP Jules) and less from people who have never farmed before or maybe grew some herbs one year. 1: this video
This family of 3 produces 6000 pounds of food a year on 1/10 of an acre that is organic, non-GMO and vegetarian: this video They have enough surplus to sell to local restaurants to the tune of about 20,000$/year to supplement their income. They use a lot of techniques handed down from antiquity, apparently. Shh, don't tell the eugenicists masquerading as environmentalists and conservationists!
You can grow a surprising amount on even 0.1 acres. Here's a video where a family grows 6000 pounds on about 4000 square feet. this video Granted, they have the whole family pitching in with the labor and it's a full-time job for them.