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I reckon we could grow enough vegies to meet our needs on our little urban block if we dug up the back lawn and got really serious about it, but we both work full-time so we can only devote a certain amount of time to it, so we specialise in what works for us.
Its amazing what can be done if we get serious. I have seen little plots in Asia which feed a whole family.
You are still not reading/understanding my replies.Quote:
Originally Posted by Chucaro
A photo on it's own is not 'evidence'.
I don't have the time or inclination to research the subject.
I do understand the point you are making (I have a big veggie patch and my 5 young children are involved with growing veggies).
If I take the same picture & dub an Australian flag on it and re-post it will you be happy ?
Colin
Most of those images are landscaping not food production and I suspect photoshopped in.Quote:
Originally Posted by Chucaro
I guess that you got my point and I understand what you have said.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lotz-A-Landies
I am not good at all in communicate trough this medium :(
Have always understood what you're saying! :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Chucaro
I also suspect there's some green enhancement of these later images as well.
I grew up on a farm where we could have basically fed ourselves totally without going to outside sources if we hadn't chosen to sell most of what we produced, but of course a 400ha. farm is quite different to a 900sq.m. urban block.
However, I still think we could be a lot more self-sufficient if we bothered, as you pointed out.
If you track down the skyline picture above to this site
Beirutopia: Could Lebanon's capital become a garden city? - CNN.com
You will see that it is a photoshopped architect's wet dream about of all places Beirut. IT DOES NOT EXIST and probably some is now rubble from the latest round of bombings.
Chucaro, You view of the world often amazes me.
We do not do this barter in modern societies as that is what money is for.
I just witnessed food self sufficiecy in Peru near Puno and the reality is miserable. The farmers eat potatoes, potatoes , and potatoes, sometimes adding a guinea pig or clay for variety.
The difference with the north say in the Sacred Valley near Cusco is striking. There they have communal tractors and are productive enough to sell their produce.
In Australia we can buy fruit and Vegetables all year round at low prices because of farm efficiency and the ability to pay for stuff with money.
Garden self sufficiency is a crock. The only time you have say tomatoes is when they are super cheap at the supermarket, farmers market, organic shop or whatever because they are in season, precisely when the stuff you grow is. I must admit that self seeding organic grown cherry tomatoes from my back yard are yummy for the few days they last.
And if you choose to grow stuff as your sole food source , you will be like the Peruvian farmers, restricted to potatoes, as they are the only things that keep over long periods without sophisticated storage.
Those food plots in Europe are a HOBBY often for retired people , not a serious attempt to grow food.
Regards Philip A
Philip that is your opinion and I respect it but not agree at all.Quote:
Originally Posted by PhilipA
I agree more with visionary people like Will Allen.
It is a matter to have the will and with it there are way in how to go about.
When you cannot grow all the food for your own needs community gardens are one of the options.
Your example of Peru it is not the best, there are other examples were people cannot grow vegetables but exchange the meat for them and is a win win for both communities.
In a small yard you cannot grow all the food but the savings in no purchasing the vegetables that you produce left you with money to purchase meat, flour, rice, etc.
Back in 1974 in a 600 spm of back yard I used to produce enough vegetables and eggs to complement the food needed for a family of 4.
My low income back then (for health reasons) allowed me to purchase meat and other food that I was unable to produce in my land.
Yes, it can be done, I have done it and thousands of people do it.
You talk about tomatoes, well I have to process them for winter and also give them away together with eggplants, capsicums, curcubits, peas, etc.
Philip, here is a video about urban farming in Lima, Peru the second most drier capital city in the world.
You can see and hearing what the people have to say about growing food in the back yard and open spaces.
When poverty exist humans look for solution, the "put it on the hard basket" or "impossible things shelf" is not an option.
I lived in South America so I have a bit of knowledge of what happens there and urban agriculture it is nothing new.
Ah Chucaro, there you go again. Lima may be dry but it has plenty of water from the mountain fed river.
Peru has 31.3% of people under the poverty line and 14% unemployment and a USD 10,700 Per capita income.Even those "employed" often cannot live on their meagre salary as AFAIK there are no minimum wages etc as in Australia.
To offer something done there as an example to Australia to follow is ludicrous. I can fully understand how ladies grow stuff to feed the kids. Only last week I saw ladies selling Gladiolies door to door in Cusco trying to feed the kids.
Rereading your original post leads me to think that you don't know what happens in Australia as you seem to make the point that we need to"educate" our children to grow stuff. Are you aware that many many schools have model farms ? our local Kincumber high School has one.
I cannot see the distinction to what you seem to long for and the current system in Australia. The very poor in Lima for example use their backyards or waste ground to grow stuff, or along the railway line or wherever
In Sydney and all other capitals there are thriving market garden areas where usually immigrants grow stuff. The only difference being in Lima they get it free ( maybe) and in Sydney they pay a lease . Have you ever visited the extensive market gardens around Sydney?
You seem now to blur the distinction between growing for yourself to consume and growing to sell. If you are talking about growing to sell, as in the Lima video then what is the difference to what happens now in Australia, except that the Lima example is very inefficient use of resources.
It all comes down to what return you get for each hour of work. In an advanced economy such as Australia you get maybe $20-no limit per hour and now you must travel many hours each week to get to work , which in many cases leaves little time for tending gardens. In Lima you may get 1 Sol ( 30cents) per half hour as a cyclo driver so maybe you can justify spending time on a plot, but in your video it was wives who seemed to do the work. Try telling your wife in Australia to do that, unless she wears tie dyed caftans.
Chucaro mate. This seems to me to be only one of a series of postings you have made which seem to me to misunderstand how Australia works, and through a South American prism, and where you seem to me to long for some utopian vision which has never even existed in South America!
My view of Peru for example probably differs greatly from yours. I saw the Amazon forest degradation, the slash and burn agriculture in a National Park! The vast inequality between the haves and have nots leading to 30% below the poverty line, the total inefficiency of the government where the road to their most popular tourist attraction has been washed away for 3 years, the almost total destruction of the animal and bird populations of the Amazon( blue macaws now extinct in the wild ), the grinding poverty of the farmers and population in the south, the callous disregard of the many gold miners who have made the Amazon area fish so polluted with mercury that they cannot be eaten.
Yet the people seem happy which is great, but I wonder how long they will look at TV and see another world and remain happy. I can recall saying to my guide how poor the people seemed after visiting a farm where they only ate potatoes,Cuy( guinea pigs) , and clay, had no electricity, no water, no gas, no toilet, one room stone "house" with 5 sleeping in one bed of reeds and skins, and cooking and heating using only sheep dung. His reply was that they are doing OK.
If those are your "visions" for Australia , then good luck I say.
Regards Philip A