The problem with Mr. White here is that he’s still internalizing capitalistic individualism.
“Everyone should grow their own food and be self sufficient.” – Nope.
“The local community should grow food for each other and be self sufficient.” – Yes.
Food self-sufficiency is much more realistic on a community scale than on an individual scale. And it can help with all the problems listed here:
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People who don’t have access to land – can share the land of others who do have access to land
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People with health problems – can be assisted by the community and still help out where they can (maybe their health problems prevent them from effectively weeding or harvesting, but maybe they could still help with sorting/processing/preserving)
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People who value food security – with a larger community growing more diverse crops, you’re less likely to have catastrophic crop failure
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People who hate zucchini – again, with a larger community growing more diverse crops, there would be more options for what to eat
Isn’t division of labour a capitalistic thing? That ultimately leads to alienation?
There’s a level of food sufficiency one can achieve on their own, even without land. e.g. I’m putting together a medium scale hydroponics system right now for home - it needs 100-120cm of wall, 30cm deep at its thickest point, and can grow about 120 separate spots.
Now obviously hydroponics is not an easy answer for all food needs. You can’t easily grow wheat and other grains/cereals in the volume you’d need. You can’t grow larger fruits that require trees. Smaller fruits - tomatoes, cucumbers, berries are usually pretty doable. And of course tons of herbs and spices - rocket/arugula, basil, mint, you name it.
If anything, the herbs alone are worth setting up a small home unit, especially since it’s so effort-free - add water, measure nutrients, repeat once a week, harvest in 3-4 weeks earliest, trim it proper and freeze for long term storage, and you don’t even need to re-plant things because most of what you’d grow in hydroponics, when trimmed right, just grows again.
Again, this doesn’t solve all the issues, but having some freshly grown herbs at least is a good way to get started with “grow your own”, even if on full scale it’s impossible.
What is the limit of a “community”? I live in a city where it is certainly not practical to grow the food needed to feed the city inside thr city limits. On thr other hand, in my province there is tons of high quality land that would be more than sufficient to grow enough food for the whole province, especially if the food system shifted to a vegetarian-focused one. Thats a lot bigger than my “community” but it is a lot more practical and arguably more sustainable.
Looking at my own area in a city there is basically zero nearby plots where community gardening would be realistic; however, if one could get an entire street to agree to use their front yards as a plot, well now all that land is being used to grow food for the community rather than just for looking or sitting. Ofc, good luck in getting people to agree to that…
I don’t know what the average yard size is in your area, but in general I doubt front yards would provide enough land to sustain everyone. I might be wrong though so it still would be an interest f experiment just to see if it could work
I was thinking the front yards of an entire city block. I also don’t think it would be enough for a main source for food for everyone, maybe just some fresh ingredients from time to time, buuut it’s also just a though experiment for me. Breaking down the fences and walls put up everywhere to say this is mine.
I live in a small community with only around 8 billion others. We have our problems, but most of us are trying to make it work.
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less parkings more community gardens
Less parking more literally anything else
I don’t care for zucchini and I’m in full support of people being able to grow their own food. I’m not sure how the two are related.
Zucchini is easy to grow and yields a lot, so it’s very popular for people who have vegetable gardens. Probably 90 percent of people growing food in North America are growing tomatoes, zucchini, and/or herbs.
Yeah, I know a bunch of people who grow zucchini and they frequently harvest more than they could possibly use. they literally can’t give it away sometimes. maybe that’s why people who don’t like zucchini don’t like gardeners? Because they don’t want the produce zucchini growers are constantly trying to offload? Bit of a thinker.
Zucchini are on the same level as bugs for me, I’ll eat them if I’m starving to death. Back when I lived in a place where crops can actually grow, I used to forcefully reject their gifting all the time. Almost nothing grows where I am now. Avid backyard farmers give up on it after moving here.
It’s absolutely possible to grow food in an small space. Shit you can sprout mung beans in a glass jar. I’m currently working on 3d printing a hydroponic tower that will expand my garden significantly
I’d imagine “without land” was aimed more towards “can’t grow enough to be self-sufficient”. You can totally utilize even small places very well, but if you’re poor living in a tiny flat without much natural light it’s a pretty daunting task to grow enough anything to live off that. Just the electricity cost for the lamps might make it pretty hard depending where you live. I guess mushrooms instead of vegetables might work a bit better though
Uhm, what? Another way too specific/obscure meme
It’s making fun of unrealistic suggestions people make regarding potential solutions to divesting from industrial agriculture.
I am the purple one, as the land I have access too is whatever pots I can fit by my window which also doesn’t have direct light.
People with health issues *that make them incapable of gardening in some way so must rely on the industry.
One would need to grow and preserve a lot of food to store away for winter and if a crop fails or the preserving technique didn’t work they’re fucked; thankfully one can just go down to the store… which is the main point of this meme.
I think zucchinis are the most efficient vegetable one can grow in their backyard or whatever, so one would be eating a lot of it.
People with health issues are incapable of gardening in some way so must rely on the industry.
Though, on the other hand, fresh-grown food from a garden (and a bit of moderate exercise) is likely to help with a lot of health issues…
It helps if you have a health issue that doesn’t affect your digestion too much. Severe intestinal issues might make it very difficult to eat plant-based diets, as plant-matter is pretty hard to digest and most plant-based proteins might be fully off the table as well.
Health issues can just fuck up everything you wouldn’t even think about, really. Hell, I’m trying to drink juice instead of water and eating a lot of salt on doctor’s orders, which is pretty much the opposite they’d usually tell you to do
