Meeting others on the green road

marizpan

Hi,
I would really like to hear from others in a similar boat as us. As it seems the road is getting lonely.
Im in my late twenties and married with 2 boys. We try and be very self sufficent and produce our own veg, rear our own pigs,chickens, geese and ducks and have a dairy goat. Must people ie. family keep telling us why bother because its cheaper to just buy it in the shop. But it not about money, more about removing the need for so much money. It a nice way to live, especially with small children.
We only have a half acre of garden but rent a large field at the rear of our house also. It doesnt take much effort 30mins morning and evening and i dont understand why more people dont do it? i guess because they have never tried it yet, because if they did they would love it.
I stay at home with the children but would prefer to go to work, but with current conditions, i dont think that will happen any time soon. My husband has been working fulltime and has just finished up due to serious illness. We have a crazy mortgage and are busy saving to be rent free in 5yrs time with a downsized mini farm, depending on what we can afford.
Is there anybody else young out there doing this also ???

Thanks:)

Birdnuts

Good stuff, more Irish people need to wake up to this benefits of this kind of lifestyle especially when we now see were a purile Celtic Tiger consumer culture has got us - we've got a great climate and loads of land after all for growing good food. Your lifestyle is actually common place over many rural(and not so rural) parts of Europe and has proven to be a great succes and a basis for strong healthy communities. Sadly though, as is the case when it comes to so many environmental/sustainablity issues, the Irish always seem to be the last to cop on

djpbarry

marizpan wrote: »

We only have a half acre of garden but rent a large field at the rear of our house also. It doesnt take much effort 30mins morning and evening and i dont understand why more people dont do it? i guess because they have never tried it yet...

...and they probably can't try it because they don't have the land, or at least most people don't. Great that it works for you, but it's rarely practical for people to grow their own vegetables, never mind rear their own livestock.

djpbarry

Birdnuts wrote: »

...we've got a great climate and loads of land after all for growing good food.

Indeed we do, so let's leave it to the professionals (i.e. farmers) to take advantage.

Macha

djpbarry wrote: »

Indeed we do, so let's leave it to the professionals (i.e. farmers) to take advantage.

Why? What's wrong with growing what you can, even if all you have is a windowsill?

Edit: And why isn't it practical for most people to grow some vegetables, if they have the space?

Judgement Day

I ask again Mod - are you sure you modding the right forum? Do you, in fact, support anything green?

Triangle

JD,
There's green and then there's just living in a fictitional world.

If the entirity of land was taken up with people on small plots doing their own thing then we would have mass starvation across the planet.

i'm not saying what the OP is doing is wrong - i applaud them - i would love to do something similar. But i would do this for selfish reasons (i.e. me and my family would be self sufficient and to hell with everyone else)

basically the point i'm making is that DJP has a point - farmers should be able to make more food greener than alot of smaller 'dabblers' but this does not take away from people that want to do better for the world.

Trig

Macha

Triangle wrote: »

If the entirity of land was taken up with people on small plots doing their own thing then we would have mass starvation across the planet.

Can you back up that assertion with stats?

Triangle wrote: »

basically the point i'm making is that DJP has a point - farmers should be able to make more food greener than alot of smaller 'dabblers' but this does not take away from people that want to do better for the world.

How is large-scale farming inherently 'greener' (please specify what you mena here) than smaller 'dabblers'. What exactly is it about growing food that means it should be the preserve of a special section of society?

If nothing else, it is an important life skill, like cooking, and by the looks of it, there needs to be some serious demystifying about how hard it is - because it isn't difficult at all to grow a few veg in your back garden, if you can be bothered.

djpbarry

taconnol wrote: »

Why? What's wrong with growing what you can, even if all you have is a windowsill?

Nothing at all – I’d be growing some vegetables if I had a garden. However, my statement was made in the context of the OP, who made reference to self-sufficiency. Now, I’m going to apologise in advance in case I am misrepresenting what they are saying, but they seem to be suggesting that they would like to see more people getting their own plots of land and trying to become self-sufficient. Personally, I think that’s a terrible idea, mainly for reasons of practicality (most people don’t have the necessary land) and efficiency - it’s generally more efficient to have food grown by professional farmers on relatively large farms than to have it grown by relative novices on small plots of land. Let me put it like this – I would not like my well-being to be dependent on my ability to extract nutrients from my garden.

djpbarry

Judgement Day wrote: »

I ask again Mod - are you sure you modding the right forum?

If you’ve got an issue with my moderation of this forum, then take it to the help desk.

Macha

djpbarry wrote: »

Nothing at all – I’d be growing some vegetables if I had a garden. However, my statement was made in the context of the OP, who made reference to self-sufficiency. Now, I’m going to apologise in advance in case I am misrepresenting what they are saying, but they seem to be suggesting that they would like to see more people getting their own plots of land and trying to become self-sufficient. Personally, I think that’s a terrible idea, mainly for reasons of practicality (most people don’t have the necessary land) and efficiency - it’s generally more efficient to have food grown by professional farmers on relatively large farms than to have it grown by relative novices on small plots of land. Let me put it like this – I would not like my well-being to be dependent on my ability to extract nutrients from my garden.

It is not a binary choice between total dependence and self-sufficiency, as you suggest. Rather, there is a sliding scale from total self-sufficiency (quite difficult, as you say) and total dependence. As usual, what's best, in my opinion, is somewhere in the middle.

Your point about most people being relative novices is an interesting one. Firstly, you're right - most people don't know how to grow food. Is this something that should be accepted, or perhaps a situation that needs to be resolved? Secondly, I would point out that there are many different types of agriculture and a lot of modern 'farmers' depend so heavily on imported fertility, heavy machinery and chemicals that they wouldn't be much better than your average gardener if they had to grow food crops without them. So this idea that there are only two groups in society (a) professional farmers and (b) novice non-farmers is also false.

As has been discussed in another thread, there can be significant inefficiencies in larger farms and this does not include other factors, such as transportation that makes up a significant amount of industrialised agriculture's energy usage & transport emissions. Add in the transportation of customers home and this increases further. Also add in the production, transportation, application and disposal of packaging and this adds even further costs/inefficiencies (in the wider sense of the word).

In short, there are significant advantages to encouraging small-scale farming among the general 'novice' public (I can think of plenty more than the ones mentioned above).

Birdnuts

djpbarry wrote: »

Indeed we do, so let's leave it to the professionals (i.e. farmers) to take advantage.

They don't seem to be getting on too well ATM being mere slaves of supermarkets and big agri business:(

Birdnuts

djpbarry wrote: »

Personally, I think that’s a terrible idea, mainly for reasons of practicality (most people don’t have the necessary land) and efficiency - it’s generally more efficient to have food grown by professional farmers on relatively large farms than to have it grown by relative novices on small plots of land. Let me put it like this – I would not like my well-being to be dependent on my ability to extract nutrients from my garden.

Works perfectly well in many part of Europe - most of France being a case in point were nearly everyone(at every scale from small back garden to larger holdings) in rural and not so rural areas produce much of what they need and are not slaves of the big multiples. Its what makes much of rural France such a great place to be - enjoyed it first hand last year in the stunning Dordorgne region, the highlight being tucking into free range pork fattened on wild acorns and garnished with salads and herbs produced in the gardens of the particular estaiblishment we were staying. Travelling from Bordeaux through rural France was a real eye-opener with nearly every house in the countryside having its own vegetable plot, free-range poutry and fruit trees - great stuff and highlighted how backward and unimaginative we are in this country when it comes to these things!!

freedom of info

djpbarry wrote: »

...and they probably can't try it because they don't have the land, or at least most people don't. Great that it works for you, but it's rarely practical for people to grow their own vegetables, never mind rear their own livestock.

an average sized back garden can produce enough veg for a family for 8-9 months of the year, a glass house is a bonus.

CJhaughey

You have to start somewhere, granted your first attempt at growing your own food might end up unsuccessfully, but with time and experience and a willingness to learn anyone can become a small scale food producer.
Our garden has gone from strength to strength but we usually produce a reasonable amount of veg each year.

I don't buy the argument that we should "leave it to the professionals".
Producing your own food means you have control over the product, you can choose to use chemical sprays or not, organic methods or not.
You are not beholden to some faceless farmer in Spain to produce your tomato's or peppers, professional though they might be.

We kept pigs for the last few years, and they provide us with a large amount of high quality pork throughout the year, and also dispose of most veg waste that we produce and also fertilize the soil where they are kept.
Should I stop producing these fantastic animals and just buy tesco value pork because it is cheaper and produced by a Professional?
Chickens are another very good way to get started with livestock most gardens could support a pair of chickens even urban gardens, historically these would have been kept by any family that had a bit of ground that they could scratch on.
We kept both broilers (eating) and layers this season and eating your own chicken is a fantastic reminder how tasty real chicken is.

Unfortunately many people have never had the opportunity to produce their own food due to many factors but I think a resurgence is under way, the seed companies have reported massive sales increases and there is a general feeling that the production of ones own food is starting to increase.
Look at the likes of TV, Corrigan growing veg and pigs etc etc.
Once you start and develop it into a skill you will probably wonder why you didn't do it before now.:)

djpbarry

taconnol wrote: »

As has been discussed in another thread, there can be significant inefficiencies in larger farms...

I’m sure there can be, but I would have thought that, in maximising efficiency, there is an ‘optimum’ farm size, which I would have imagined is significantly larger than the typical back garden.

taconnol wrote: »

In short, there are significant advantages to encouraging small-scale farming among the general 'novice' public (I can think of plenty more than the ones mentioned above).

I’m sure there are and as I said already, I’d give it a go if I could. But, like many people living in cities, I don’t have a garden! Somebody else has to grow my food for me!

You mentioned cooking in an earlier post and I think that’s a useful analogy; many people, for whatever reason, are terrible cooks and they always will be, for whatever reason (I’m sure we all know at least one). But fortunately, their terrible cooking is (usually) confined within the walls of their house. However, suppose you have two people living next door to each other, both of whom are attempting to grow their own vegetables; one has become quite adept, the other is making a pretty half-assed attempt at it. Is there not a chance that the good gardener’s work will be undone in some way by the poor attempts on the neighbouring plot of land? Further, would it not make more sense for the good gardener to be responsible for the management of both plots, therefore increasing efficiency and possibly producing sufficient excess to sell to a city-dweller ?

djpbarry

CJhaughey wrote: »

I don't buy the argument that we should "leave it to the professionals".
...
We kept pigs for the last few years, and they provide us with a large amount of high quality pork throughout the year, and also dispose of most veg waste that we produce and also fertilize the soil where they are kept.

For better or worse, some of us have to leave it to farmers to produce our food – we don’t have an alternative. It’s great that you are in a position to raise your own pigs, but that’s simply not an option for, say, people living in flats – they have to buy their meat from somewhere.

But let’s suppose for a second that I did have a large garden suitable for rearing pigs. Let’s also suppose that there’s a butcher nearby selling locally-sourced pork (let’s say it’s organic, for argument’s sake). The butcher is selling his pork for €x per kilo, whereas I have worked out that if I were to raise my own pigs, the net cost to me (including labour) per kilo of pork produced would actually be greater than the price offered by the butcher. In that case, wouldn’t it make sense for me to just buy the pork from the butcher (looking at it purely from the perspective of efficiency)?

CJhaughey

djpbarry wrote: »

For better or worse, some of us have to leave it to farmers to produce our food – we don’t have an alternative. It’s great that you are in a position to raise your own pigs, but that’s simply not an option for, say, people living in flats – they have to buy their meat from somewhere.

Indeed I am not saying an apartment dweller should raise any livestock, but there is nothing stopping them from growing herbs on their windowsill of patio? Thats a start and then when a recipe calls for a handful of parsley it is right there at hand. Is that not efficient? Or should it be left to the big scale herb grower.

You can also apply for an allotment.

djpbarry wrote: »

But let’s suppose for a second that I did have a large garden suitable for rearing pigs. Let’s also suppose that there’s a butcher nearby selling locally-sourced pork (let’s say it’s organic, for argument’s sake). The butcher is selling his pork for €x per kilo, whereas I have worked out that if I were to raise my own pigs, the net cost to me (including labour) per kilo of pork produced would actually be greater than the price offered by the butcher. In that case, wouldn’t it make sense for me to just buy the pork from the butcher (looking at it purely from the perspective of efficiency)?

Do the maths on Organic pork, and you will find that you cannot buy it cheaper than you can produce it, if you have some land.
But by raising your own pigs you will certainly find out how to handle rear and deal with pigs, after a few years of this you will have developed more efficient ways of feeding and you have a new skill.
If you have no desire to know how food gets from farm to fork then you are at liberty to buy the stuff from a supermarket/market stall/farmer.
But by developing the knowledge to produce your own food you have bettered yourself and taken a step towards being able to feed yourself.

Then there is the knowledge that your pig lived a healthy, happy life free to roam and root, the last bit is not looked at as an economic equation but is more a moral question.
There is more than just economics involved.

freedom of info

CJhaughey wrote: »

Indeed I am not saying an apartment dweller should raise any livestock, but there is nothing stopping them from growing herbs on their windowsill of patio? Thats a start and then when a recipe calls for a handful of parsley it is right there at hand. Is that not efficient? Or should it be left to the big scale herb grower.

You can also apply for an allotment.



Do the maths on Organic pork, and you will find that you cannot buy it cheaper than you can produce it, if you have some land.
But by raising your own pigs you will certainly find out how to handle rear and deal with pigs, after a few years of this you will have developed more efficient ways of feeding and you have a new skill.
If you have no desire to know how food gets from farm to fork then you are at liberty to buy the stuff from a supermarket/market stall/farmer.
But by developing the knowledge to produce your own food you have bettered yourself and taken a step towards being able to feed yourself.

Then there is the knowledge that your pig lived a healthy, happy life free to roam and root, the last bit is not looked at as an economic equation but is more a moral question.
There is more than just economics involved.

currently allotments are in short supply, however dublin city council have 19 acres of land near blessington, that maybe turned over for horticultural use,

djpbarry

CJhaughey wrote: »

Do the maths on Organic pork, and you will find that you cannot buy it cheaper than you can produce it...

Including the cost of your own labour?

johnathan woss

Triangle wrote: »

If the entirity of land was taken up with people on small plots doing their own thing then we would have mass starvation across the planet.

Absolute nonsense.

Large-scale farming only works with large inputs of fossil fuels.
Long-distance transport of food only works with large inputs of fossil fuels.

Fossil fuels are finite .... draw your own conclusions.

johnathan woss

Also;

The mod of the green issues forum should NOT be discouraging the local production of food and extolling the virtues of industrial farming. This is ridiculous.

CJhaughey

djpbarry wrote: »

Including the cost of your own labour?

At what point do you value your own labour to grow things? Gardening for most people is a hobby, something they enjoy.
Same with small scale animal husbandry.
How do you value the environmental damage caused by intensive pig farming and overuse of chemical fertilizers for grass production? Who pays for that?
When your local river is choked with algae from fertilizer runoff how do value that?

Small scale horticulture and agriculture is by its nature sustainable.

djpbarry

The next person to discuss moderation will be banned. No exceptions.

gillo_100

Triangle wrote: »

JD,
If the entirity of land was taken up with people on small plots doing their own thing then we would have mass starvation across the planet.

Fair enough I might concede that were you to take a farm and split it up among say 20 individuals tho total production of that may be less than what a single farmer could produce.

However that is not point, the land is already there in peolple back gardens not producing anything, it is just being used as patio, lawn or flowerbed. So by changing this into producing land how are you reducing the overall output.

Fair enough not many people would have enough land to raise livestock but even a 1m square plot can produce a decent ammount of veg.

marizpan

OP here
djpbarry, i think you have misunderstod my post. We have 1/2 acre back garden that would go to no other use than lawn as must peoples do. I am not discussing city v's country etc gardens. I only discussed my personal situation and am only interested in hearing positive feedback from people in similiar positions. I have not taken a productive piece of land from any farmer. We rent a field for our horses only,which was idle prior to our lease, our garden produces all our veg, egg and meat requirments. Although my dad does give us a fatten lamb every year. i do come from a farming backround and actually studied this in colleague for 2 yrs before going to do another degree. We only have to buy in bread, cereals & utilitys.ie. washing up liquid, washing powder, toilet roll.
People from farming backrounds would understand that large scale farming is very ineffective and as already stated, heavily reliant on oil and oil byproducts.
I agree, its not about being totally self sufficient. That is an impossibilty and not desirable.

Macha

djpbarry wrote: »

I’m sure there can be, but I would have thought that, in maximising efficiency, there is an ‘optimum’ farm size, which I would have imagined is significantly larger than the typical back garden.

Most definitely if we're talking about producing surplus for sale to markets, etc, and I wouldn't claim to be expert enough to know what that is.

But two points:
a) if you have a patch of land, then growing any food is more efficient than growing none, even if you never produce a surplus :pac:
b)there are plenty of 'novice' farmers in the country that sell what surplus they have to local markets/restaurants who are only too happy to have some local, seasonal, fresh, good value produce.

djpbarry wrote: »

I’m sure there are and as I said already, I’d give it a go if I could. But, like many people living in cities, I don’t have a garden! Somebody else has to grow my food for me!

Sure fine, but do you have a windowsill? A balcony? Then you can grow something. You may choose not to - but that is different from proclaiming that you cannot. Then, there is always the option of putting down your name for an allotment or get involved with a community garden.

The issue of urban gardening is fascinating and something I'd love to see the local authorities get involved with. For example, one element of permaculture is to make the landscape edible. So when the council is planting trees in a park, they could make them apple trees - doesn't that make sense??

djpbarry wrote: »

You mentioned cooking in an earlier post and I think that’s a useful analogy; many people, for whatever reason, are terrible cooks and they always will be, for whatever reason (I’m sure we all know at least one).

Perhaps so but to be honest, those people are really in a minority. Cooking is not that hard - I just gave a friend a cooking lesson over the weekend and the best thing about it was the demystification (ahem, is that a word?) of the whole process! There are very few people who can't even throw together a plate of pasta with some sauce.

Let's look at the cooking/food growing analogy a bit more. If a person doesn't know how to cook, there are quite a few drawbacks:
1) ultimately it is more expensive for them because they rely on others (supermarkets/restaurants/takeaways) to do their cooking for them
2) they create more packaging through their ready meals
3) their meals use more energy in transportation, pre-cooking etc than home-made meals.
4) They have significantly reduced control over what goes into their meals, as ready meals are often laden with fat/sugar/salt, etc.

Similarly, not growing your own food can have similar drawbacks:
1) it's more expensive to buy in a supermarket than grow your own
2) more packaging of food
3) more transportation
4) far less control/knowledge of production methods, again relying on labelling.

djpbarry wrote: »

Is there not a chance that the good gardener’s work will be undone in some way by the poor attempts on the neighbouring plot of land?

?? djpbarry it is not like you to make such weird arguments!

djpbarry wrote: »

Further, would it not make more sense for the good gardener to be responsible for the management of both plots, therefore increasing efficiency and possibly producing sufficient excess to sell to a city-dweller ?

Hmm, sure. I mean I suppose the way I look at it is, there are a lot of benefits to growing your own food and it isn't as hard as it looks. It's better for the environment, you learn a new skill, you can get the whole family involved, save some money, get some exercise....or you can just give into the big agri-business conglomerates and buy your food (which externalises many, many costs to the rest of society and the taxpayer) from Tesco. It's a no-brainer for me.

djpbarry

CJhaughey wrote: »

At what point do you value your own labour to grow things? Gardening for most people is a hobby, something they enjoy.
Same with small scale animal husbandry.

That’s a pretty big assumption you’re making their – most people enjoy gardening? I wouldn’t be so sure about that. Perhaps a more accurate statement would be most people who garden enjoy gardening. But anyway, animal husbandry is not the same as gardening – there’s a reasonable amount of work involved (an hour a day minimum in my experience, depending on the number of animals). Even keeping a pet dog requires a bit of effort. I suppose the extent to which you value your own labour depends on the constraints that said labour puts on your time.

CJhaughey wrote: »

How do you value the environmental damage caused by intensive pig farming and overuse of chemical fertilizers for grass production? Who pays for that?
When your local river is choked with algae from fertilizer runoff how do value that?

So I can either rear my own pigs or support irresponsible farmers? That looks to me like a false dichotomy.

djpbarry

taconnol wrote: »

Similarly, not growing your own food can have similar drawbacks:
1) it's more expensive to buy in a supermarket than grow your own
2) more packaging of food
3) more transportation
4) far less control/knowledge of production methods, again relying on labelling.

Why do I have to buy all my food pre-packaged in a supermarket?

taconnol wrote: »

It's better for the environment, you learn a new skill, you can get the whole family involved, save some money, get some exercise....or you can just give into the big agri-business conglomerates and buy your food (which externalises many, many costs to the rest of society and the taxpayer) from Tesco.

Or the local green-grocer. Or a farmers’ market. Or how about your favourite supplier?

What was that you were saying earlier about a “binary choice”?

marizpan

djpbarry wrote: »

Why do I have to buy all my food pre-packaged in a supermarket?
Or the local green-grocer. Or a farmers’ market. Or how about your favourite supplier?

What was that you were saying earlier about a “binary choice”?

Because the large'professionals' supply the supermarkets, the farmers markets are run by novice 'hobby' farmers.

Ddad

Hi OP, Nice one, I think your fighting the good fight. Not only are you reducing your impact on the environment but you are teaching your children the value of food and the importance of the origins of food. I have a relatively small garden but we still manage to get at least one meal a week out of it on average.

The children all get to eat plants that they planted and value that. My friend who has a small suburban garden keeps three hens and two ducks so I get eggs from him and he gets fruit/veg from me when I have a surplus.

i'm buying a house with an acre in the next few months and moving into producing some pork and lamb for the freezer and enough veg for us without having to buy any in.

I would like to address some of djpbarrys points though. 50% of the houses in Kerry built in the last 10 years were built in non-urban areas. Planning guidelines stipulate that most of these housese are built on at least a half acre. Now a planning debate is for another forum so let's leave that. However what those dwellings represent is a massive movement of land from agricultural use to residential use. In most cases this land has been lost to food production. Kerry is the poster boy for bad planning but it is no way unique in Ireland, so we're looking at a hell of a lot of land lost to food production.

The majority of dwellings in ireland are more than adequate for some small scale food production; are we not the land of three and four bed semi d's? If more of this land was turned over to small scale horticultural activity not only does it produce health benefits but it also increases the knowledge of those consumers about the importance of providence in the food chain. Better educated consumers make sustainable and more ethical purchasing choices.

To look at the world through the warped panes of economic efficiencies seldom delivers good results for the environment on which we all rely. Up until 30-40 years ago we were a low carbon economy, it is not coincidence that 30-40 years ago many of us raised our own food. It is also not coincidence that we now eat one of the poorest diets in the world and we are among the most car reliant societies in the world.

As a nation we have lost our way; it appears to me that the OP is finding her way back.