Supply Chains
Mar. 27th, 2020 09:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
greenstormFurther to my previous entry, here's what I'm thinking about the ubiquitous "you don't have to worry about food: you're set."
I certainly have enough meat. I have 12 chickens, a dozen geese or more, and 6-8 100-150lb pigs that could be eaten this summer with no negative impact to my breeding program. However, to keep those animals alive till slaughter, and also to keep my breeding stock eating and producing more meat, I need a ton or two of grain per month. My grain is grown locally, in the next town. The farmers there buy seed grain, and they work their land with equipment that requires fuel. I am dead certain they all have loans to navigate. I pick up the grain using fuel.
I have eggs coming out my ears.
I can grow enough veggies to eat year-round if the animals don't get into the garden and eat them all. I need to till the garden (fuel input for my little rototiller) and I buy seeds for most of my food. I also need to water the garden, which requires electricity for my well. Once that food is picked I don't have a root cellar, so I need a lot of freezer space and heat (electricity or propane) for canning. It takes significant time to scale up that kind of food production. This is the best possible time of year to scale it up, though: before the beds are planned, while more ground can still be turned.
Calorie-providing foods, carbs, are a different thing again. Squash, potatoes, grains: to provide for myself they definitely need space and protection and skill. I can do potatoes; I don't really have the skill for the others here yet. I'm working on that, and trying to learn a little all the time. I'm testing some corn this year, it's a flint corn variety that apparently ripens in 60 days and grows the height of my knee. It was grown by indigenous folks in Quebec originally.
So when folks say they think I'm set, I think they don't understand that I require inputs, and that those inputs take time and skill to scale up. I've been focusing on animals, and using animals to shape the land, so far. I've been playing in the garden. If I had to eat only what I grew it would be slim pickings and pretty repetitive. If I had to eat only what I grew, with flour and butter and milk and occasional veggies (especially out of season) available at the store, I'd have a bounty for one person or even two but I couldn't support a community unless folks put in a whole lot of work with their actual muscles to beef up on fencing and do weeding and pasture-moving and whatnot.
I am thinking very hard about my inputs these days, though. They seem to be invisible to most folks but I really hope those supply lines are maintained.
I certainly have enough meat. I have 12 chickens, a dozen geese or more, and 6-8 100-150lb pigs that could be eaten this summer with no negative impact to my breeding program. However, to keep those animals alive till slaughter, and also to keep my breeding stock eating and producing more meat, I need a ton or two of grain per month. My grain is grown locally, in the next town. The farmers there buy seed grain, and they work their land with equipment that requires fuel. I am dead certain they all have loans to navigate. I pick up the grain using fuel.
I have eggs coming out my ears.
I can grow enough veggies to eat year-round if the animals don't get into the garden and eat them all. I need to till the garden (fuel input for my little rototiller) and I buy seeds for most of my food. I also need to water the garden, which requires electricity for my well. Once that food is picked I don't have a root cellar, so I need a lot of freezer space and heat (electricity or propane) for canning. It takes significant time to scale up that kind of food production. This is the best possible time of year to scale it up, though: before the beds are planned, while more ground can still be turned.
Calorie-providing foods, carbs, are a different thing again. Squash, potatoes, grains: to provide for myself they definitely need space and protection and skill. I can do potatoes; I don't really have the skill for the others here yet. I'm working on that, and trying to learn a little all the time. I'm testing some corn this year, it's a flint corn variety that apparently ripens in 60 days and grows the height of my knee. It was grown by indigenous folks in Quebec originally.
So when folks say they think I'm set, I think they don't understand that I require inputs, and that those inputs take time and skill to scale up. I've been focusing on animals, and using animals to shape the land, so far. I've been playing in the garden. If I had to eat only what I grew it would be slim pickings and pretty repetitive. If I had to eat only what I grew, with flour and butter and milk and occasional veggies (especially out of season) available at the store, I'd have a bounty for one person or even two but I couldn't support a community unless folks put in a whole lot of work with their actual muscles to beef up on fencing and do weeding and pasture-moving and whatnot.
I am thinking very hard about my inputs these days, though. They seem to be invisible to most folks but I really hope those supply lines are maintained.
