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“No, stop farming, infant mortality rates are supposed to be over 50%!”
The farming is okay. Just make sure to discourage anyone from feeling they have some sort of divine ownership over the land. Examples:
Little Johnny says “This is my land!” Knock that little bugger over and say “it’s mine now.”
If John says “God has given me this land to carry out his will!” turn that fucker into fertilizer so that he may be of use to society.
So if you spend months preparing a harvest, you’d be cool with someone turning up in the night and taking the crops after you’ve done all the hard work? After all the land wouldn’t being to you.
They took more than was fair, so it wouldn’t be fair.
Group ownership of a resource isn’t in conflict with controlling the resource, or having laws and practices to determine how it’s used.
Kinda like how we all own Yellowstone park, but no one is free to bottle and carry off all the water from old faithful.
So do you think it’s fair for a group of people to raid a farm and pick what they haven’t contributed to growing as long as they take just enough to feed themselves, piggybacking off the work of the farmer? Why should the farmer agree to this?
Edit: rewrote the question to satisfy people who think asking questions about is somehow combative.
Small-scale, local farming is where it’s at. Growing a bucket of potatoes on a balcony or helping out at a community garden are small but achievable steps to bring the food closer to us. In addition to sustainability, it promotes knowledge of how to produce our own food and reduces dependence on large-scale monoculture farming.
It’s nice to walk a few paces and pick up an ingredient for dinner with the satisfaction that you nurtured it. But mainly, I just don’t feel like going to the grocery store as much lol.
Check out !BalconyGardening@slrpnk.net :)
I think most of the things you say are true, but small local farming isn’t going to solve world hunger. The bigger a farm gets the more efficient it can operate. The progress we made as a species boils down to how much more efficient we can do stuff.
For sure! Industrial-scale farming has been integral to the population growth of our modern society. It doesn’t hurt to alleviate a small amount of pressure from those systems at a local scale in a sustainable way. I mainly just find it fun to grow a few veggies here and there and thought others may be interested. :)
Absolutely, I planted some tomatoes and very spicy peppers. All of them failed (planted in the wrong month I guess). Definitely a learning experience and definitely something I’ll try next summer.
I really hope the plants survive the winter, but I might have to start from seed again
I do sure wish I had a balcony. I grew peppers and cherry tomatoes on my windowsill a few years in a row but the effort isn’t worth it for an apartment…
I feel ya! We work with what we can and if the space you have isn’t feasible, then that’s okay if it simply doesn’t work out.
That being said, here’s a few options to consider but do what you want. :)
One option is to grow some herbs since those tend to get pricey and they therefore offer the best bang for your buck. Plus they take up little space. Starting from seeds is the most cost effective (only a couple dollars for 1000s of seeds). Sow them in an empty plastic egg carton, nursery pots, or other upcycled plastic container. Then, you can germinate and grow under grow lights. Don’t bother with “grow light” marketed ones. Just the brightest, whitest generic LED bulb will do. If you run it all day, it’ll only cost a couple cents per month. Then, you can harvest fresh herbs year-round! Lamps can be found for cheap and sometimes free on Facebook marketplace.
Another option is finding a community garden in your area.
I do already keep herbs going as much as possible! (though I don’t do it from seed, lazy bum)
The community garden idea is great, but the ones in the city center here are… expensive and quite “hipsterish”.
I grow tomatoes in my balcony. Constructive and fulfilling activity, love it.
But I can’t imagine eating like 15 tomatoes per year lol
And that’s ok! Nobody expects to live off of a small garden, nor is it feasible for everybody to grow everything they eat.
It provides many benefits already, such as being a fulfilling activity as you said. It also cuts down on food waste since you can harvest when you eat it and leave it on the plant for a bit longer otherwise. It also reduces trips to the grocery store and reduces emissions of importing food over long distances. Finally, it’s much cheaper if you grow from seed and upcycle plastic containers for planting. Especially if you grow expensive crops like fresh herbs.
Small scale farming would not be able to sustain the human population as it stands.
No, but it will help. Do you currently have a plan if you were unable to purchase food at the store?
God damn you keep showing up here with the dumbest fucking, capitalism teet sucking takes. We get it, you love Elon Musk.
Yeah more ad hominem attacks. That’s a really good way to convince someone you’re correct, getting angry and lashing out for the crime of asking questions and trying to foster an open discussion.
For the record, I detest Elon Musk.
Industrial production of food is not the problem. Capitalism is.
I mean, good for you if you want to play in a garden with plants, but I don’t want to do that. And this kind of production is not enough to feed everyone.
Nobody is claiming an issue with large-scale food production, or that small, local gardens will feed everyone. Also, nobody is telling you what to do.
Rather, that there are benefits to growing even a little bit of your own food should you choose to do so. There’s no need to talk down and I hope you’re alright, because that’s a lotta strawmen.
Could’ve been hunting mega fauna with my homies but here I am with depression and anxiety
One theory is that hunting and gathering stopped because the human population exceeded what could be supported by mega fauna, and early peoples had no choice but to settle down and defend what resources they could gather.
It likely started with semi permanent settlements, simple fortifications that could be returned to year over year, and when it became too difficult to leave again, or when they found themselves unable to return to a location they were expecting to, they settled down permanently.
But you really can’t go out and hunt when you can’t leave. So they started to depend on agriculture, and what livestock they’d been able to keep with them.
Right. And then there’s the fact that agriculture is a trap in that once you adopt it you can never go back and anyone nearby who doesn’t adopt it as well will eventually be outcompeted and disappear as a people, or they will be driven into ever more remote and inhospitable environments. None of this requires anything like foresight or intention either.
Just don’t assign corporate ownership of the fields and it’s all good baby.
Just don’t overadjust and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolkhoz
If i care for area for years, build, plant etc, someone else can come take it?
No, but you should not be allowed to accumulate more than what you can consume when your community is starving
I wasn’t advocating personal ownership either. But how does that lead to OG feudalism?
Wealth inequality trends to increase over time. Without some system that actively redistributes wealth, eventually a few people own everything of value, and ordinary people are obligated to do whatever the lords want in order to gain access to the material resources they need to survive. That’s feudalism.
Were I not lazy, I’d be willing to bet if I sift through their comments that I’d find something about landlords being bad.
