The most common historical solution has been backyard and community gardens. They were common after the soviet collapse, and during WWII in North America.
I know you said “and not wait a growing season” but some backyard crops can grow in 21-30 days. And masks took longer than that. There’s a lot of yardspace that could become gardens and chicken farms in a pinch.
A big risk would be if that happened during the winter, or in a place where there is less surplus fertile land.
If there’s some event where you can’t grow, the only current thing we can do is already having non perishables stockpiled. We didn’t event a whole new supply chain for masks: existing companies ramped up production and citizens/new companies made cloth masks. But we’re talking established techniques.
Gardens are good for herbs, vegetables, and possibly a small quantity of staple crops.
When you're trying to provide calories (as well as sufficient essential nutrients: protein, essential fats, and vitamins), quantity matters, and a few raised beds really won't get you very far.
An adult needs roughly 2,000 food calories (kilocalories) per day (~1,600 -- 2,400 for women, 2,000 -- 3,000 for men), though it's possible to survive (with weight loss) on less than that.
1 kg of wheat flour contains 3,600 calories, or nearly the daily calorie intake of two adults.
An acre of wheat in the US yields about 40--50 bushels (under modern mechanised agriculture), at about 27 kg/bushel. Which, if I'm doing my maths right might mean an acre can support about 4.8 people (in wheat).
Under emergency and hand-raised conditions, probably markedly less.
Mind: if you've got some but insufficient food, you could supplement with what you grow in a garden plot.
The traditional famine food on Earth (since Europeans discovered the Americas), or Mars (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJCMgwcJNOk) has been the potato, at about 10 tons per acre. That's about 10x the wheat yield, though potatoes have a much higher water content, and rate at about 870 calories/kg, about 25% as much as wheat.
Yeah I was thinking potatoes and chicken as the ultimate staples of such gardens. Chickens can grow in 8-12 weeks, or 6 months for egg laying chickens. I guess it would depend how well chickens survived any initial catastrophe.
Maybe greens wouldn’t be worth it compared to potatoes even if they grow quicker.
This is true, but we have to keep in mind that victory gardens were supplements, not replacements. Also, if we had another 536 event, even the gardens would suffer.
We planted a garden for the first time in years right at the start of lockdown, and it was not nearly enough for food replacement. I laughed that it was good thing we didn’t need it for survive, because we’d starve.
Still, gardens are a great hobby and way to offset food costs and be a bit more self sufficient.
I think we'd need to be able to spin up grow lights and materials for DIY greenhouses (pipe and plastic, at least) in large volumes. Otherwise, yeah, pointless trying to grow at home when the sun is obscured.
I find that the garden is a good way to complement things you're already making. Start with a staple (cheap and long shelf life) and add garden things to make it more interesting. I don't have chickens, but getting 10 eggs daily wouldn't hurt in terms of making frittata and so on. You need a lot of time and space to otherwise live off just a vegetable garden. I have a dozen chilli plants and single-handedly (wife and kids don't like chilli) eat myself out of stock just using small chillis in rice or similar.
Soviet collapse era gardening/small-scale farming really helped, yes, and it also was a pretty horrific experience. Thank god for the damn potatoes, otherwise I might not be typing this. That said, the weather patterns were quite favorable and the many novice farmers would have stood little chance if the climate turned on us during those hungry years. Russian summer offers no second harvest, so a failed crop means a hungry winter. With no stores of food because of the economic failures, a winter like described above would have meant widespread famine.
Getting enough calories to survive from a backyard garden is very tricky. I dabble in it and probably get like <500 calories per year. To survive you’d need staples like wheat but that takes almost a year and even potatoes take 3 months ish. Peas are fast when it’s sunny I guess. If the season or weather kills commercial farms then your garden will likely do much worse than the pros
Yes, but those things bring more value than simple green grass. I can eat the chickens and their eggs. I can eat veggies from the garden. I can’t eat St Augustine grass because I’m not a goat.
Though a "condo" is technically a legal structure, in Canada in generally refers to a self-owned 'apartment' with-in a tower of some height. Colloquially 'townhouses' are house-looking structures in a common development.
Fully- or semi-detached generally means a freehold property without any links to any kind of other legal entity (besides the municipality). 'Semi' means that there is a shared wall between two structures, but they are legally independent lots.
For a low naintenance lawn you can plant clover or turf grass or a mix of grass with clover, Dutch Clover and chamomile. You get a more diverse lawn which attracts bees. If you have a lot of shade, moss is also a good alternative.
I know you said “and not wait a growing season” but some backyard crops can grow in 21-30 days. And masks took longer than that. There’s a lot of yardspace that could become gardens and chicken farms in a pinch.
A big risk would be if that happened during the winter, or in a place where there is less surplus fertile land.
If there’s some event where you can’t grow, the only current thing we can do is already having non perishables stockpiled. We didn’t event a whole new supply chain for masks: existing companies ramped up production and citizens/new companies made cloth masks. But we’re talking established techniques.