First-Hand Food--Aiming for Self-Sufficiency? Do the Math!

From the Huffington Post. This author's math explains exactly why farmers have gone to such lengths to provide us with cheap, plentiful foods--without volume to make up for the high costs (which become high prices), there's no money in farming, and low sufficiency in self-sufficient efforts.

"If you're not growing, raising, hunting, foraging, or fishing your own food, you're behind the curve. Chickens and gardens, pigs and turkeys, rods and guns, are all showing up at the homes of what used to be milquetoast supermarket shoppers.

My husband Kevin and I are knee-deep into it. We've got a chicken coop that's nicer than our guest room, a hoophouse to extend our growing season, and poultry everywhere. Although our hunting has not been as fruitful as we'd like, our fishing is pretty solid (it helps that we live on Cape Cod). We even have a small oyster farm.

We don't aspire to actual self-sufficiency -- we're too attached to both interconnectedness and coffee -- but we are trying to get some non-trivial portion of our food first-hand. As we closed down 2011, I wondered how we did, so I did the math. I figured out the caloric needs of two large, active adults (about 5000 calories per day, given that we both ended the year a couple pounds heavier than we started), and added up the rough caloric contribution of everything we harvested.

I started off optimistic as I added up the fish, eggs, and the turkeys and ducks we raised, but it was downhill from there. Even a pretty good tomato crop adds up painfully slowly. And those thirty pounds of leafy greens? Dispiritingly low-calorie.

Here's the complete tally:

Poultry 48,500
Eggs 22,500
Fish 87,000
Shellfish 12,000
Winter squash 10,000
Tomatoes 3200
Greens 3000
Other vegetables 8300
Fungi 1500
Miscellenia 1000

All told, that's 197,000 calories, almost exactly 11% of our yearly caloric needs. Eleven lousy percent! (If you're interested in the gory details, I posted a complete breakdown on my blog, Starving off the Land.)

Granted, there's more to it than that. There is, for us, a profound satisfaction in harvesting our own food, and a fresh bluefish or a perfect Brandywine is worth more than just its calories. But still, for all the time and effort we put in, I thought we'd do better than eleven lousy percent.

If you're in the self-sufficiency, or homesteading, or even farting-around-in-the-garden business, do you have any idea what your number is? If it's high, I want some suggestions. If it's low, we can commiserate.

Up until this year, we've aimed to eat at least one food each day that we get first-hand. This year, our goal is changing. In 2012, we're trying to get 20.12% of our calories from food we harvest. Call it 20%; this is an imprecise enterprise.

So, Kevin and I are aiming to get 20% of our food first-hand in 2012, almost twice what we did in 2011. We could use some moral support here. Anyone want to join us?"

First of all, 5000 calories A DAY? Unless you're Olympic training, you're easily eating too many calories by half! If you ate more protein and fats, you'd find more satiety, and would therefor need much less food to fill you up, making your bounty an adequate one rather than something to bemoan.

Yes, I'll commiserate with you on the off-hunting year, forcing you to consume more low-calorie and higher-sugar/starch foods like fruits and veggies--perhaps you should look into dairy to help fill the void. It isn't a perfect solution, but it would provide missing protein and a little satiety while you're awaiting that next wild game kill.

Nuts and avocados would also provide more protein, along with a little fat, and best of all, you don't have to buy them repeatedly--you can PLANT them in the form of trees, so they keep producing for you year after year for free, as well as doubling as sun shade and landscaping.

Now you know why farmer's wives always sewed excess quilts, canned excess foods, made cheese/butter/ice cream, and made excess clothes (to sell roadside) from summer to fall--for "pin money" they called it--money to buy those things that didn't get grown on the farm, like hats, farm machinery supplies, books, more quilting supplies, or things that they ran out of in the dead of winter (when there was no possibility to grow more). Even real farmers occasionally run out of things, or don't meet their own needs, so don't beat yourselves up too much!

This is also why they had such sizeable pantries--they bought stuff in large quantities while it was on sale (lowest market price) and stored it for use in the winter, or all year round. They also stored some of their excesses after drying, canning, freezing, juicing, and otherwise preserving it just for the time they'd really need it, and it wasn't available. Whatever wouldn't fit in the pantry/basement/storehouse got sold at roadside.

In stock market parlance, go long fat, protein, and low-sugar, and go short starches and high-sugar. If in doubt, just look at what the Amish do--they subsistence-farm for generations, and even THEY sell stuff by the roadside to make up for things lacking at home which end up needing to be bartered for, or purchased outside.

One more thing: make the food you DO produce count for your health care as well as your hunger satisfaction--look into Paleo and Primal dieting, see the foods they recommend, and use those as your provisions planning guide. By planting and growing foods that give you more bang for your nutritional buck, you're getting more ACTUAL NEEDED NUTRIENTS per dollar (and calorie) than just food for food's sake (and calorie sake). By pinpointing your growing efforts to nutritionally-improved foods, you cut down on expense, effort, and shorten the shopping (or growing) list--this gives you more energy and flexibility to channel extra time and creativity towards your "pin money" activities (or just lets you figure out if you really even NEED pin money).

As for your 11%, I commend you--it's more than many of the rest of us do!