Letter Re: A Survival Suburban Homestead: A Prepper’s Twist on the Homestead Movement

Jim,
The community described by DMT seems like a nice place to live and I wish I could share his optimism and his faith in human nature. It seems to me that a community like he describes would take years to form. It might have a chance if everyone could be persuaded to store a year or more of food and stock up on agricultural equipment, but it seems to me that it would be a superhuman task to get everyone to go along with it in an emergency unless you could feed them until harvest time.

Also, unfortunately, my figures don’t jive when it comes to minimum acreage required to support a population. Veggies don’t count. I love tomatoes and zucchini as much as anyone else, but the problem is growing enough calories to survive. Discounting rice, which I don’t think you can produce in suburbia, that leaves a few grains and root crops as the best staple products. Here are my personal estimates for Corn, wheat and potatoes, assuming you have some gardening skill and seed.

The national average for corn production is just over 150 bushels per acre (with heavy input of chemicals). With 56 pounds per bushel, that means 1/10 acre plot can be expected to produce under 900 pounds of grain using modern methods. With no fertilizer and non-hybrid seed, I would expect about 1/3 that yield, or 300 pounds.

Wheat’s national average is 30 to 100 bushels per acre (with lots of variation, depending on soil inputs and irrigation) at 60 pounds per bushel 1/10th of an acre can be expected to produce under 400 pounds of grain or about half that without chemicals or irrigation.

>From potatoes you can expect 150 bushels per acre if you have chemical fertilizers or deep, well built soil, that means on your 1/10th acre, you could expect about 15 bushels, or about 900 pounds. You might get a third that much without chemicals and newly formed gardens like you would have if you dug up a lawn. With careful cultivation, I think you could get about 400 pounds max. Not bad.

Unless my math is wrong, that means you would be hard pressed to grow enough calories on 1/10th acre for more than one person. I think DMT may be confusing profit with calorie production. Garden crops such as lettuce and chives are expensive and pay more per acre…but you can’t live on them.

I would also wonder where his community would get heating and cooking fuels. – JIR

JWR Adds: Yes, you are right. And the whole issue of essential Fats and Oils is also a shortcoming. To allow enough room for grain growing, I believe five acres is a more realistic minimum size parcel to support a family.