People are poor because they have no land.

[zeemike]

And this is the dangerous idea that they don’t want you to learn.
It is dangerous because the true wealth of a nation is in the land and it’s resources, and in the labor that produces our abundance. And should the people learn that, they might desire some of the real estate for themselves.
Just look at how the vast majority of people live now….a big house on a small lot with grass that we cut and kick to the curb….if one day the grocery store had nothing to sell we would all starve….so our security is non existents and we are totally dependent on a job and the corporate system for our life….there really is no difference between our system now and the feudalism of the past. We live at the pleasure of the owners.

But it has not always been so….This country once had most of the people living on farms, and on these farms they had the means to produce all that they needed to survive any financial crisis. A milk cow, some chickens, a pig or two, and an acre of good land and your family will eat even if they have to wear patches on their pants and carry their lunch to school.
And this is how most people got through the last great depression….in fact it feed many that did not have land….the country side was crawling with unemployed men who would knock on the door of a farm house and ask the lady of the house if they could work for food….and she always had some kind of chore and would feed him and sometimes give him a piece of bread to take with him.
The lady of the house would probably sell eggs and butter to trade for flower and so the one thing they had that was valuable is food….and they owned it themselves.
And that is the real wealth that we lost the ability to be free and secure in your life has been lost when we gave up the land to industry.

Back to the land young men and women….that is the answer.

[AnArmyVeteran]

1. Good, truthful OP

[zeemike]

2. Thanks. n/t

[Skidmore]

3. People are poor because they have abandoned the land

for the gleaming cities on the hill and easy money. The land requires an investment of sweat and muscle. It requires a dedication to stewardship and a willingness to live with what nature brings your way. It means being willing to take pride in callouses and dirt under the fingernails and to take pleasure in the odor of moist tilled soil. You can't plug these things into a modem or tend them from the shiny blandness of a cubicle. Any yields you get must be from the labor of attending to the needs of the plants and animals in your care, not the steaming heaps of verbal bullshit produced around conference tables and over fiber optic cables. The land is our most valuable asset and is to be treasured. Those of us who claim it, walk it, hold it in our hands, and revel in its mystery and power are often mocked here. I would much rather be a servant of my little patch of earth than to be shackled to industry in its current iteration. I love the soil and if I treat it with respect, it returns much joy to me. Come, dig in the dirt with me. Find the roots that run under it and the creatures crawling through it. Come, learn the pleasure of grass between the toes and stretch your arms up to the canopy of leaves over your head. Come, throw your head back and revel in its rich twinkling ceiling unhidden by artificial light. Come, breath in the sunlight and drink in the riverlets. Come, reclaim the bounty spread out before you. You have thrown so much away in the name of convenience.

[zeemike]

5. A beautiful tribute to our natural self.

And we have come so far from our natural self I suppose some would think that this should be ridiculed.
Not me brother.

[tech9413]

8. Too true

When I was a kid we had most of the yard as a garden. It was a lot of work to keep it going but so satisfying to sit down to dinner and enjoy the fruits of your labor. When I got older and had to make a living, I was in cities or townhouses and couldn't connect with the land.
The past few years I've been back home to help out my parents. Now I can again enjoy getting my hands dirty and see the fruits of my efforts sustain people. The greatest enjoyment is the smile on the face of someone who has never tasted naturally grown fresh produce.

[blindpig]

16. They haven't abandoned the land, they were forced off it.

Starting with the Enclosure Acts, the practice started in England and we can see it still occurring in this country and rampant in the 3rd world. Agriculture became a Capitalist's enterprise and the 'surplus' population was forced by necessity into the gawd awful cities to find their sustenance.

Capitalism is a monster.

[corkhead]

42. +1000

you are on a roll today Skidmore!
:toast:

[MadHound]

4. Idylic pastoralism is wonderful in theory,

In practice it is impossible. If everybody moved back to the land, then you would have massive commuter problems because people would have to work in order to bring in cash. More traffic, more pollution.

Furthermore, there simply isn't enough arable land. On average, assuming most folks are omnivores, a couple needs ten acres to raise enough food for themselves. That means that we need 1.5 billion acres to fulfill this need. Given that there is a total of 1.2 billion acres total in this country, you simply won't be able to fit everybody onto the land.

You're right, it is easier to survive hard economic times in the country than in the city. But frankly, for those of us already out here, we don't want to see a flood of newcomers invading the area. That's why we moved out here, we like the quiet and solitude, and the fact that it is rural areas that are providing refuges for many species of animals and plants. If you open the floodgates, you're going to get a massive wave of complete idiots coming out here, with their noise, pollution and idiocy, and this last natural refuge in our country will disappear completely.

[zeemike]

6. Well I disagree with that completely.

First most of the farm land is now owned by corporations who farm mono culture crops that like yellow dent corn is basically inedible until it is processed by a factory.
All of that land is owned by industry, not by people. And so the concern for the natural environment should then lead you to want to change that.
And if people are to go back to the land they must change the corporate farming moddle....so they will not be taking up your land they will be taking it back from the non living corporations that own it now.

[MadHound]

12. First of all, as I've stated, there simply isn't enough arable land in this country

We have a total of 2.3 billion acres of land, total. About one quarter of that is arable land that is suitable for farming.

Unless you're going to continue to have people using chemicals on their crops, every person in this country needs approximately 5 acres of land, for a total of approximately 1.5 billion acres.

Get the math, do you understand? We simply do not have the land it would require for everybody to live the pastoral life.

And again, since people are going to need cash in order to purchase farm implements, or TV's, or whatever, they will need jobs, which means that they will have to commute long distances, which means more pollution.

And again, putting the ninety percent of the population who doesn't know a damn thing about raising food or sustenance farming is simply asking for disaster. People will die from starvation, over exertion, and who knows what else. Not to mention that their presence will disrupt the lives of the animals and plants they are out here in the wild, trying to escape from humans. Is that what you want.

This is a wonderful, idyllic idea of yours, but the time for it has come and gone. We are simply unable, due to land and resource constraints, to go back to the yeoman farmer model of our Founding Fathers. It's really that simple.

[zeemike]

17. First there are errors in your thinking.

On an acre of farm land you can produce enough food for a famly...even if you only eat potatoes and beans an acre of land will sustain you.
And it may not be well known but in the past most people that lived in town had bigger lots and most of them kept a few chickens and perhaps a cow and pig and had a substantial garden for fresh food....most people in 1930 knew how to feed themselves.

But we have bought into the notion that without chemicals and a corporation providing our food we would starve because we just could not live on the land....and that is convenient for them and enslaves us all.

[MadHound]

50. No, there are no errors in my thinking, only practical experience

If you are going to practice sustainable agriculture for a long period of time, you need to rotate crops and livestock according to a certain schedule, and certain parts of your land are going to have to remain fallow for at least a season. Otherwise your soil is going to become increasingly weak and your harvests are going to be that much less in size and nutrient value

Yes, you can raise enough "food" on one acre to feed a family. But it will not be a variety of food, which is what everybody needs. Potatoes and beans are nice, but you're not going to have a very healthy diet living only off of beans and potatoes. Furthermore, you are going to wind up with a situation like that in Ireland in the 19th century, a monoculture agriculture collapses bringing about famine and disease.

If you are grazing certain animals, like cattle, you generally need more land. It takes, roughly, six acres per cow to properly feed and tend the animal. You can fit this nicely onto a four crop rotation, but it still takes acreage. Other animals take different amounts of acreage, depending on their size and number, but the thing is, you can't fit livestock and subsistence farming all upon one acre.

If you want wheat and other grain crops such as corn, then you also need acreage. You can fulfill the wheat requirements for approximately ten people with one acre of wheat. With corn, you can feed approximately twenty people a year per acre. But again, you have to rotate your crops. A good crop rotation schedule involves corn, soybeans, grains, a veggie crop, livestock to manure, and then lie fallow. All of this takes acreage.

Furthermore, all people need fruits, and again, those take up land. You can't simply plant a row of apple trees tight together and expect them to bear fruit. They need to be spread out so that they can fully develop. In my orchard I've got twenty six trees per acre. This allows for full canopy spread, maximizing fruit harvests, and also allows spacing to keep diseases and fungus from spreading readily from one tree to another.

These aren't figures I'm simply making up here, these are following time tested practices for producing a sufficient quantity of food, with high nutrient content and variety, in a sustained manner over the ages without using chemicals. I know these figures through not just study, but also practice. Yes, you can pull a year's worth of food out of an acre, but it is going to be low in nutrient value, low in variety, and cannot be sustained year in, year out, for the long haul.

You truly need about five acres per person in order to achieve this goal in a sustainable manner. You may not like it, but it is the truth. In fact it was the lack of acreage that kept our population in check for so long. With the development of fertilizers and such, we saw the number of people able to be fed jump by orders of magnitude. If you took away those chemicals, especially now because the soil is so worn out from monoculture farming, our food producing capacity would collapse and it would be generations before it came back. Those are the plain facts that we have to face.

[zeemike]

55. Here are some figures.

Farm Characteristics
1997, 2002 and 2007 Census of Agriculture

1997 2002 2007
Approximate total land area (acres) 2,262,462,020 2,263,960,501 2,260,994,361
Total farmland (acres) 954,752,502 938,279,056 922,095,840
Percent of total land area 42.2 41.4 40.8

Cropland (acres) 445,324,765 434,164,946 406,424,909
Percent of total farmland 46.6 46.3 44.1
Percent in pasture 14.9 13.9 8.8
Percent irrigated 11.5 11.6 12.7

Harvested Cropland (acres) 318,937,401 302,697,252 309,607,601

Woodland (acres) 76,854,833 75,878,213 75,098,603
Percent of total farmland 8.0 8.1 8.1
Percent in pasture 40.4 41.0 38.1

Pastureland (acres) 398,232,125 395,278,829 408,832,116
Percent of total farmland 41.7 42.1 44.3

Land in house lots, ponds,
roads, wasteland, etc. (acres) 34,340,781 32,957,068 31,740,212
Percent of total farmland 3.6 3.5 3.4

Now when I do the math and divide 300 million into 900 million I get 3 acres PER PERSON....and sense we have normally at least 3 per family that changes thing no?

[MadHound]

61. Yes, you get approximately three acres per person

Yet that doesn't change the simple fact that you need approximately five acres per person in order to properly farm, for the foreseeable future, in a sustainable manner.

You need certain crop rotations in order to keep the soil in good shape. You can't grow potatoes, beans, potatoes, beans, ad nauseum without the land crapping out and going bad. You've got to rotate in things like soybeans or peanuts, or for that matter dope, that are nitrogen fixers. You've got to let the land lie fallow once in a while to fully recover. You've got to graze livestock on it to add manure. To do this properly, you need at least five acres.

And this is assuming land that is in good shape. Hate to tell you this, but much if not most of the cropland in this country is shot. The only reason we're still able to get harvests off of it is because of the miracles of modern science, fertilizers, which further degrade the land. Do you realize how long it takes to get land back into growing shape? Years, sometimes decades. I've got an area of my farm that was overfarmed then over grazed. I've been working on restoring the soil using cover crops, green manure and regular manure. It's six years on, and maybe in a couple of more I can plant some veggie crops, but certainly not soil drainers like corn.

So, there isn't enough land for your dream, the soil is not ready for your dream, and frankly we've seen this scenario play out before. Go read up on Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge and Year Zero. Millions were sent out from the cities to become farmers in Cambodia. Millions died due to starvation, they were abused, overworked and didn't know how to farm. Farming is a skill, you don't just stick seeds in the dirt, sprinkle some water and pull a few weeds. If you suddenly went to sustenence farming, people simply wouldn't know how and would die.

And again, if you move all the people out into the countryside, you're creating a massive human influx into the wild, literally. You will destroy what is left of the wildlife in this country, you would harm the ecosystem hugely. For instance, what are you going to do about sewage? Let it flood the countryside?

This is a nice dream of yours, but one that simply is unworkable.

[zeemike]

67. First a family usually consists of at least 3 people not one.

And secondly there is a lot of land that is not farmed at all because prices are too low and the government pays them not to farm or to turn it into pasture.
And the implication is that only the industrial farming can feed us, and we cannot feed ourselves which I think is not only wrong but the crux of most of our problems...we have bought into the notion that bigger is better.
And it is the fact that the soil and land have been depleted and poisoned with chemicals that we need to institute this so that the future generations can have a land that will produce and take care of us...it is the mono culture crops that is causing the problems.
But you are suggesting that I am like Pol Pot wanting to force people to farm....that is far from the truth...I am trying to convenience young people that they need to go back to the land for the sake of the future generations...I myself am too old to make a difference now and all I have left is my mind to use in that goal.

But I do know the challenges because I have been into organic guarding and farming sense the 60 and have some experiences re rehabilitating a run down farm....did basically what you did...green manure, cover crops and lots of manure....and I admit it took years but I did see lots of improvement after 5 years....and I hope you will keep at it.

My dream includes a time of peace and the use of science to make it possible for "every man to sit under his own fig tree"
I imagine we turn the weapons of war into agriculture equipment....and in these days the weapons of war are not swords and spears but robotics.
Imagine if you will that you had a tractor that was solar powered and smart as hell...and would tend your fields, plant your crops and harvest them too and all you had to do was program it to do what you wanted....You could raise an acre or two of tomatoes for sale with little effort or time from you...could you then become a small farmer? You could live in the city then and commute to the farm when necessary.
You think this is an imposable dream?...I don't think so....I think it is possible right now if we put the effort into making it so.

[Xithras]

49. There are 470 million acres of cultivatable land in the U.S.

With a current population of 310 million, that works out to 1.5 acres per person. According to the WHO and several global agricultral NGO's, the minimum amount of land required to support a single person, year round (sufficient summer production to create enough excess to last the winter), is 1.7 acres...and THAT assumes that the landowner is highly skilled, knows exactly when to plant, has no water shortages, and perfect weather. It also assumes vegetarianism. It is theoretically possible to support a family of four on as little as a half acre, but you're talking starvation level rations, and zero buffer zone for the inevitable bad harvest. One bad crop, one dry month, one bug infestation, and your entire family is dead. The half acre number also assumes heavy usage of artificial fertilizers to boost land yield, which is an economically questionable proposition when your family is spending all of its time just trying to grow enough food to survive on. How are you going to afford to BUY the fertilizer?

So yes, in spite of what the other person is saying, you're correct. It may be an idealist fantasy, but there simply isn't enough arable land in the United States for "everyone" to go "back to the land" and own their own family farm. You realistically need to have between 4 and 7 acres per person to support a typical omnivorous diet, with sufficient production excess to allow part time farming, and part time "civilized" work.

Unless that other guy wants to kill off half the American population, he's not being very realistic.

[david13]

7. Ah the good old days. When the population of this entire country

was what, 20 million? But then what did they all do? Start having babies, ah wouldn't babies be nice? Let's all have babies. So now what do we have here. 350 million and growing rapidly? So,
figure out the land mass, divided by that number, and what do you come up with. And I mean arable, usable land, not mountains, rivers, lakes, etc.
1/2 acre each? Wow I wish my house had that much.
So, it's always nice to fantasize about the good old days, but they weren't that good, they didn't last, and we can't go back there, and probably very very very few people would want to.
No sarcasm or mockery, just reality.
dc

[zeemike]

10. Actually I spent some time reading the history of this country

And what I learned is that the wealth of this country came directly from farming.
In the 1850s for instance I learned that the farmers in places like central Illinois were the ones with money because at that time we had no real monetary policy and the farmers there could take there grain down to the river and sell it for Spanish silver.
And because the farmer had money the cities grew up to support them.

But think of this....if it is imposable for people to feed themselves on the land we have now, where do we get the food then?
There are vast amounts of farmland in this country and it could feed us all and perhaps one day will have to.

[david13]

19. Now you need to update and read the part where the wealth of the

country no longer comes from farming, that long long ago it became more productive (of money, wealth) to put housing projects onto the farm land. Why? Read again the part about ... babies. They grow up and want to buy houses.
But manufacturing took over from farming long (150 years?) ago.
And now the manufacturing and producing productive (of wealth, money) products has moved to other countries.
dc

[david13]

21. Ask the farmers. Farmers don't make any money today. And there

are fewer farmers than ever before. Because there is no money in it.
200 years ago 96% of the american population was in farming, and made money. Today it's less than 2% of the population, and a lot of them don't make much money.
dc

[zeemike]

24. Well let me pose this question.

Let's say you have lots of gold and along comes a famin....food is in short supply and you are hungry....how much would you pay for bread?

But you may not be able to answer that question until you are hungry.

[david13]

26. I can answer the question. It's rhetorical, not practical. But first,

let me pose another related question. If I have gold, how do I keep it? In time of famine, what prevents the first clown coming along with a gun from taking the gold from me, either dead or alive?
In the same way, if I have bread or grain on a farm, and there is famine, what prevents the first individual, or group coming along and just taking it, while I stand by, or over my dead body?
Rhetorical, but do you see, you are opening a large can of worms?
dc

[zeemike]

29. and if you have no gold no one will take it.

So perhaps freedom is really nothing left to lose.
And there is noting to stop the ruthless from taking the bread out of your children's mouth....they will do that with anything of value or anything that they want.
But the bottom line is that our sustenance comes from the land not from the gold, and so it is the ultimate wealth.

[david13]

31. But if you are poor, if you have no money, how much land can you

buy, acquire. None. So now you are going in a circle. From nothing to nothing. To nowhere.
dc

[zeemike]

35. But that is the question I am asking.

Do people own the land?
And if the land is taken from them by what ever means do they have the right to take it back to provide the necessities of their life?
Was the land created for people or people for the land?.

[david13]

38. I thought the question was "back to the land". Answer. It ain't possible. dc

[More_liberal_than_mo]

25. Over-population

You just hit the nail on the head. This planet, not just our country, has too many people. We already, world-wide, have more mouths to feed than can be fed with all the available food being produced. People already are starving to death in many parts of the world. The only viable solution is to reduce the number of births, that or genocide, yet the right-wing religious zealots among us still insist on forcing women to have babies that they can't support. Failure to reduce the birth rate will have to result in mass starvation, disease and of course, war as nations compete for limited resources.
I predict that sometime within the next century, probably sooner rather than later, there will be a major correction to the world's population. Something has to give. A global epidemic that kills 50 per cent or more; or a global war than kills 100's of millions.

[david13]

28. Certainly posible. Maybe even probable. dc

[Ichingcarpenter]

9. The AMERICAN Indians thought that LAND ownership was

A REALLY FUCKED UP IDEA....
and the White Man proved it.

[zeemike]

11. And I agree with them.

After all they lived on this land for thousands of years with no problems to speak of.

[Ichingcarpenter]

14. New Mexico... ahh.... I miss her

land of my birth

Now we need to reign in the PUBLIC LANDS from the BLM
back from the Corporations to the people.

Agreed, I was lucky that my father's sister married a Navajo
and got to go to their Nation and experience something
so foreign in my early adulthood.

[zeemike]

18. And the Native Americans continue to sustain themselves

On that land. Even though most people would look at and say it is imposable.
We still have a lot to learn.

[Ichingcarpenter]

23. My introduction to the Zunis from my 'uncle'

was an eye opener.

Boy did I ever at that age try to see what they were really saying
in their myths and actions.

I got invited to many Native America sweats about 10 years later.

It really is ...... an original American way of thinking about how we live

Same with the term 'ALOHA' where I spent 2 years in Hana


They were Native too
I didn't like the royalty aspect. of the culture
but most everything I did like.

I'm a stranger in a strange land

[david13]

37. Whoa. The primary sustenance of native americans today is:

??? Gaming casinos. Most of them were dead flat broke til those came into legality and vogue.
dc

[zeemike]

41. Broke or not they endured all these years because they had land

The land they were exiled to in most cases...the land no one else wanted.
Except for some like the Hopi that have lived a sustainable life uninterrupted by modern society.

[david13]

43. Not really. They survived because they had sustenance. They

maybe were 'land rich' but 'cash poor'. And the rich land they had wouldn't produce anything, it was the worst of land. Land they were "given" by the government, because it was poor and otherwise useless. Their equity wasn't sufficient to borrow against.
So what good did that land do for them. Nothing. Until the casinos came into vogue. Then they began to prosper.
dc

[zeemike]

45. You are probably not aware of it but

Hopi and the Navajo have not adopted gambling and they did sustain themselves on land we think of as worthless.....The Navajo raised sheep and made there living by it....the Hopi raise their corn as they have for hundreds of years with no help from us.

[david13]

47. Actually, I am. It is known as subsistence farming. Barely eking out

a living.
The point is my great grandfather had to move to the city and work in business, industry or commerce. As did most others.
My father and grandfather worked summers on the farm to pick up a few bucks, but had to work and live in the city to survive.
There has been in my lifetime, and I'm old, a 'back to the land' movement like thusly:
Work in the city, and make your fortune, maybe move to a commercial center like Los Angeles or New York and at some point cash out. Realize several millions net, and return to the land in the form of a gentleman farmer.
Buy 5, 10, 100 or 1000 acres (as you can afford) and farm, not for profit, but as a hobby, in essence.
Mostly it has been done with wineries. Buy a winery, or build one. I have known dozens who have come to Los Angeles, built their fortune, and moved out to the "farm". Or maybe you don't even farm. You just buy the land for conservation purposes. Your own park, as it were.
I was caught up in that myself. But I missed the big city and it's services. Or features. And sitting out there on my land, I stared, and thought, what could I grow here? Answer: Nothing. It wasn't worth the investment and the work.
dc

[zeemike]

51. I am sure subsistence farming is all boring and useless. to you

But if you were a homeless family living in your car how would it seem then?
If you are happy living in the city then stay right where you are.
But I did some looking back on my own ancestors and found something diferent...My great grandparents came over from Ireland in 1850 and they were farmers....by 1875 they had their own farm and were prosperous....raised 7 kids and did prety well for themselves as farmers.
My Grandfather was also a farmer that did pretty well for himself....raised 7 kids and lived in a fairly nice house...all from farming.
But all of that was before our modern era of factory farming where large companies like ADM started to dominate the agriculture of this land and do what every corporation has done ever sense....drive out the competition by manipulating prices and buy up their real estate.

So as it stands now yes you have to have money to be a subsistence farmer or what you call a hobby farmer...I looked at land prices in the county that my Grandfathers lived and now 40 acres sells for one million dollars....impossable for most people and even if they did find financing for it they could not make it in conventional farming.
We have been made slaves to this system and we have been effected by Stockholm syndrome and have learned to love our masters because we have no real options but to be a loyal consumer of junk.

We are poor indeed because we have lost our land.

[david13]

53. And we would be poor if we were to turn to subsistence farming.

The past is gone. We cannot turn back the clock. The economies of scale take over. Yes. Inevitable.
Going backward, even if we could, wouldn't work.
dc

[naaman fletcher]

59. Yet they fought over land and massacred each other over it all the time.

The noble indian is/was a myth. They killed off their enemies just as we do, only we are better at it.

[zeemike]

66. I almost fell for that flaim bait...n/t

[Indydem]

13. "when we gave up the land to industry"

Ignorance is a terrible thing.

There are family farms in this country, with PLENTY of land to their name, that can't make enough money to send their kids to college, or pay the seed bill in the spring.

Land DOES NOT equal wealth. The idea that is everyone just owned some property that we'd all be great is not only ignorant but fantastical.

We just lived through a mortgage meltdown where people so badly wanted to own a little land that they signed away their life and future to get it, yet even though they owned land they couldn't pay the bills.

Land, like a tractor or a piece of metal working equipment, is a tool. If you know how to use it, you may be successful, but you can work all the hours of daylight, struggle and strain, and put forth your blood sweat and tears, and there are no guarantees that you will make ends meet.

[zeemike]

22. It is the attitude that land is a tool that is the problem.

It is not like a tractor it is alive whether you know it or not.

And the loss of family farms has been an epidemic sense the 70s in case you missed it....and it mostly is due to the fact that they convinced these family farms that in order to survive competing with industry they would have to go big....and so they borrowed the money from the bank and prices fell and the bank took the farm....and the it would wind up owned by the corporation who they were competing agianst....think this might be a game?

[elehhhhna]

15. Baloney. Look at Rhodesia/Zimbabwe and land redistribution --

People are poor because they're illiterate. Literacy = resourcefulness. Resourcefulness = you know whaT TO do WITH THE LAND WHEN YOU HAVE IT...





oops sorry re; caps

[Ichingcarpenter]

20. Baloney

YOU talk about another continent

a world away from this thread

I FIND YOUR STATEMENT RATHER RACIST AND XENOPHOBIC.

[zeemike]

27. Better yet look at how it became Rhodesia.

And how the people there like the native people here were self sustaining and how the english through force of arms took the land away from them to provide wealth for themselves.

[pipi_k]

30. I'll tell you what's frustating to me, as someone trying to sell a home...

The price of my home also includes over 8 acres of land. Land a potential buyer could do just about anything to, and with. Well, maybe not build condos or a water park or anything, but there are all sorts of other possibilities.

They can also just let it be and enjoy it.


But so many people just totally IGNORE the fact that they're not getting a house on a postage-stamp piece of land like they would in town.


Land, to many people, means nothing.

It's horrifying to me now...even though I lived that way for many years...how people will tolerate being a stone's throw from their neighbors. How many people actually enjoy it.

Anyway....


I love my land. My only problem, now, with living this far away from "civilization", is the mileage and time involved in going to the city.

If we ever do sell, my wish would be to have another home on a decent sized piece of land in a suburb of my preferred city.

[el_bryanto]

32. I don't believe this would work without a certain amount of depopulation

I'm also not sure people would want it (but I am a natural born city boy so my opinion might be biased. I certainly don't want to go live on a farm).

Bryant

[zeemike]

39. Not everyone need live on a farm to be self sustaining.

We will allays need shoemakers and Bakers and candlestick makers, but this is part of community which is lost in our industrialization of our food supply.

[Donnachaidh]

33. just previewed some 400K homes in my area

It's a fun, cheap thing to do on a sunny morning.

Anyway, despite all the over-the-top amenities, the houses are so close together you can spit into the other homes' kitchen windows from your own kitchen window. And the backyards can only be classified as postage-stamp sized.

That always bothered us about these supposed *homes*. Our parents had homes, and they all had huge backyards that were USED, both for gardens and for play. These new homes are antiseptic doll houses, nothing more. :shrug:

[wiggs]

34. A must read or those interested in this topic: Earth Democracy nt

[a kennedy]

36. 40 acres and a mule.....

if that ever would have happened...... just saying....

[zeemike]

40. And imagine what would happen if we did it now?

Gave every homeless family 40 acres....but there would probably not be enough mules to go around but there are plenty of chickens.
The homeless family would still be poor, but they would have a place to live and could make something of it.

[tourivers83]

44. A little bit of heaven on earth.

I and my partner’s house has about fifteen acres, mostly woods but five acres are part of a big field back by the creek. My neighbor owns the other part of the field and he grows silage on all of it. We could grow all our own food on this ground but neither of us are farmers and her dad grows a big garden up on the mountain where he lives and he shares with us. So we grow birds. And raccoons, and rabbits, and we have our dogs. And every evening the birds sing to us.:beer: :party: ;)

[zeemike]

46. That sounds like a wonderful life.

But you could learn how to grow your own food and you have a place to do it.

[naaman fletcher]

48. ah the good old days.

The women constantly pregnant, 10 kids, half die before five. Backbreaking labor all day for the men. Dust, dirt, disease. People left the farm on purpose, just like they are leaving the farm now in China.

[zeemike]

52. No false dichotomies please.

Just because we try to get something good back from the past does not mean we have to take the bad with it.
Did you think I was saying that?

[naaman fletcher]

57. they go hand in hand.

Farming is difficult work, and it is labor intensive.

[zeemike]

60. Difficult work can be rewarding.

In many ways....and if you are independent then it is all for you.
But if you go to work for a factory and work bailing fiber and push a 600 pound bail on to a conveyor belt every 7 minutes as I did when I was young enough to do it is hard work too...and I can testify to that...but in the long run I never did anything lasting for myself or mad a difference with that work....If you farm a piece of land for 40 years you have, and have passed it on to your children for their security and independence.
the fruits of your labor if you work hard for industry are no more than a gold watch and a pension.

[Yavin4]

54. The OP Proves That Regressive Thinking and Nostalgia for the Past

Is not a just a province of the right.

[zeemike]

56. Fair enough comment.

But when things are not working for most people...and they are not for us, it is also progressive to look at the past to see what good we did away with to make this failing system...and that is what I am trying to do here.
If all of us had land we might be just as poor as we are now, but we would not have to be hungry or beg for charity from others just to stay alive...seems to me there is value in that even if it is an old idea.

[Yavin4]

58. Back When We All Had Land

We were poorer and far worse off than we are today. The toll on the environment would too great and it would not be able to sustain an entire nation of subsitence farmers.

Like a lot of conservatives, you are romantic for an era in the past that you really have no real experience living through.

The mess that we're in can be easily corrected with better economic policies, not subsistence farming.

[taught_me_patience]

63. +1 completely agree with this post. n/t

[zeemike]

64. Not at all

I do not pine for the old days, I pine for the future.

And I have always been a forward thinking person...read every scientific and science fiction in the library by 12....Abour 1958 I made a bet with my friend that we would land on the moon in less than 20 years....I was right...
Actually I am a Zeitgeist who sees a much better way to live with nature and science working together.

And though it might sound imposable to you I can see a future where mankind does go back to the land and lives there in peace and freedom from want....and where the most common trade and commerce was in art and music....they will have beat their swords into plow shears and there spears into pruning hooks....And the good things that science has produced will make it happen.

[taught_me_patience]

62. I completely and totally disagree with this

We are in a modern economy, where land serves almost no value. I'd rather have a 600sf apartment in Manhattan than 100 acres in Iowa. I'd rather have an education from a top school than the apartment. The modern economy is driven by ideas, daring, and creativity and wealth is determined by cash flow. What use is land in this economy? You can't farm without water. You aren't going to mine it. It's useless. It's a money drag, requiring maintenence taxes.

I suppose you could subsistence farm... but that's hardly a way to create meaningful wealth.

[zeemike]

65. Not everyone wants or needs it.

Sometimes the best of times are had among the least of us.