Comments on: How Much Land Would You Need To Grow All Of Your Families Food? http://www.blog.thesietch.org/2007/07/18/how-much-land-would-you-need-to-grow-all-of-your-families-food/ The voice of The Sietch community Thu, 18 Mar 2010 23:56:20 -0400 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 hourly 1 By: keithf http://www.blog.thesietch.org/2007/07/18/how-much-land-would-you-need-to-grow-all-of-your-families-food/comment-page-1/#comment-64473 keithf Wed, 18 Jul 2007 19:59:40 +0000 http://www.blog.thesietch.org/2007/07/18/how-much-land-would-you-need-to-grow-all-of-your-families-food/#comment-64473 This is very interesting! I just did a quick calculation, and the total amount of arable and cultivated land on Earth is (according to the World Factbook) about 6.8bn acres, or double what the calculations in this article show for the current world population. There is a huge range of farming intensity around the world, plus a huge range of environments, but assuming that the average farming density is a bit higher than subsistence, due to intense mechanised practices, this should be less than the figure from the article. But, of course, lots of people eat beef, dairy products, pork and lamb, and that figure is growing as "developing" countries aim for the standards of the industrialised, profligate nations. That really knocks the figure up - along with problems of soil fertility loss and flooding. All of this makes self-sufficiency very tempting; and communal farming even more so. Keith This is very interesting! I just did a quick calculation, and the total amount of arable and cultivated land on Earth is (according to the World Factbook) about 6.8bn acres, or double what the calculations in this article show for the current world population.

There is a huge range of farming intensity around the world, plus a huge range of environments, but assuming that the average farming density is a bit higher than subsistence, due to intense mechanised practices, this should be less than the figure from the article. But, of course, lots of people eat beef, dairy products, pork and lamb, and that figure is growing as “developing” countries aim for the standards of the industrialised, profligate nations. That really knocks the figure up – along with problems of soil fertility loss and flooding.

All of this makes self-sufficiency very tempting; and communal farming even more so.

Keith

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