When did man produce all his own food?

Since majority of people these days dont have access to large tracts of wild land to forage and hunt, maybe say foraging and hunting off the land you own. Own suburban postage stamp lot and you arent going to get lot wild game or plants. Maybe dandelions/clover from your lawn, thats about it. And you shouldnt count anything that requires a state hunting or fishing license. That requires CASH, thus becomes a BOUGHTEN item.

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"What would you do with a brain if you had one?" -Dorothy

"Well, then ignore what I have to say and go with what works for you." -Eliot Coleman

Not being a hunter, I don't see how you can depend on wild game. Long ago, hunters knew not to hunt close to home in the summer- save close hunting for winter. It would take a LOT of land to depend on hunting as a stable food source. A hunter friend in TN told us when to not hunt certain animal - due to worm loads being high, etc. Plus, I think the number of hunters would soon out number the game. Foraging for wild plants however is a good option.

Anyone have any luck creating a community - not commue, but a community of like-minded folks that you barter with? Anyone grow/raise things with future bartering in mind? I can see myself having too many apples and an extra lamb - I'd be willing to trade for a pig or some grain. But so far, I've made no steps in that direction. I have plenty of people that say they want me to grow things for them, but I never see the color of their money.

I COULD produce everything I need myself. I know how, but why?
I'd give up a lot for starters. Like this computer, my truck, a decent set of tools.
Besides, it's just not cost effective to be 100% self sufficient. Trade is good, dependence on trade is bad. That's just my .02

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Know why the middle class is screwed? 3 classes, 2 parties...

To punish me for my contempt for authority, fate made me an authority myself. ~ Einstein

In that case pass the Cheetos.....

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Flaming Xtian
I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.
Mahatma Gandhi


Libertarindependent

man never has and never will produce all their own food, nature makes the food and we ether find the food freely or we help nature make the food and then eat it. We dont make anything we just help. We are just mother nature's "Little Helper" children, loved and cared for by creation.

Quote "I have plenty of people that say they want me to grow things for them, but I never see the color of their money."

Isn't that the truth... can't even recall the number of times I've had people want me to start seedlings for them when I start my own. Ok, I did that a couple of times. First time the person I gave the seedlings to let them sit and die without ever planting them. Second time they never even came and got them. I don't do that anymore.

If indians had great trade routes, and I know that they said they found around Jamestown indian settlements things that had come from Florida and the Hurons in the great lakes. This would require a good many people walking to carry enough to make it worthwhile, and also to be safe, ie safety in numbers. SO, There musta had been alotta slaves that the indians had to haul these goods in a caravan. Getting slaves means raiding. Do u think that the indians fought each other over long standing disagreements over trade, or over the means to accomplish it.
Long after trade by indians with indians was gone, in the west, indians liked to raid others camps for horses. Women were alright too if the men were gone, But women were slow pokes LOL, and horses traveled much faster, and as a whole, were worth more to the indian. Do u think this leftover raiding was caused by the problems listed above that went back in time maybe a couple hundred years.

Was he abusive because of near-starvation, or was the "self sufficiency" just another aspect of a abusive control freak?

This is a very interesting topic.
I discovered years ago, that a single family couldn’t produce all the vegetables, feed for all the livestock that provides the meat and milk, grow and grind the wheat and corn for flour, make soap, cheese, candles, cut, card, spin and knit the wool for everyone’s sweaters, hats and mittens, shuttle the loom for shirt and jean material.
Then do you till those acres with tractor or horses? Tan your animals hides to make harness. Distil the corn to make alcohol to power a tractor.

Just not enough hours in a day. You might be able to sell your eggs for a pair of mittens. You might be able to sell your scented soap to buy a bag of flour.
When people complain that 50 years ago, a farmer could get by on 80 acres, I remind them that those farmers often times didn’t have a TV, no cable, no ORV, no SUV, no second vehicle, no air conditioning.

For many of us, being able to pursue the dream of self-sufficiency is the result of our modern society. Hobby farming is a luxury that most of rural and suburban families can afford to add to their recreational activities.
If we can do it more efficiently than commercial farms, we can take pride in reducing mankind’s impact on this planet. We fail when we spawn an industry of millions of seed catalogs, requiring deforestation. We fail when we expend more fuel getting our lettuce to the farmers market than the same amount of produce is transported commercially.

There was a PBS special on a while back about the first settlers in the Appliachian mountains. They took up with the Cherokees and learned many of there ways of providing food for the winter. Along with sharing there ways with the Cherokees such as growing wheat, oats, etc. It is said that the Cherokees new of over 500 different plants and trees that could be used for food or medicine.

According to this special those very first white settlers along with the Cherokees did quite well of being self sufficient as there were no jobs or grocery stores to rely on. It wasn't till the land developers moved in and started jobs that started making people poor in that area. People took up jobs and forgot about planting fields and gathering food from the forest. Then when the developers had molested the land and moved on suddenly there was no money to be made and people became poor cause they had no money to live on and no longer knew how to survive off the land. Many no longer had any land to live on as they had sold there's to the land developers in return for a job that no longer existed. No land, no jobs, and very few Cherokees remained to teach them how to survive anymore.

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r.h. in oklahoma

Raised a country boy, and will die a country boy.

African Bushmen, Masai warriors, and some isolated South American Indian tribes still live entirely on what they hunt/grow.

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Ted H

You may all go to Hell, and I will go to Texas.
-Davy Crockett

i have no problem with what i need . can be done but producing all i want ... coffee chocolate pepper corns. then again .. taxes mortgage ...should set my sights higher than all i need. if you "need" to have copious amounts of varried meat with every meal then no its not. and if you work off farm as well it will be hard as well

and topic about food . can produce some fuel as well cant make solar panels or batteies

Along with what UNISEF drop ships them.....

And i'll add - No Cub Scouts/girl scouts, baseball/soccer/football practice, piano lessons, play practice, church responsibilities, driving 50 miles a day for errands/school/work, 4H, playing with friends, after school activities and 3 hours of homework a night.......

good example...not my preferred lifestyle.

But also no chance to advance society as all their time was spend providing for themselves. No all took up jobs - someone had to provide the food for those that were inventing ways to deliver water to homes, machines to do heavy lifting so buildings/roads could better fit their needs. If we spend all out time on ourselves, where's the time to help our fellow man? Spread good will? think?

But also no chance to advance society as all their time was spend providing for themselves. No all took up jobs - someone had to provide the food for those that were inventing ways to deliver water to homes, machines to do heavy lifting, build roads, learn medical care, etc. If we spend all our time on ourselves, where's the time to help our fellow man? Spread good will or word of God? Think? Educate beyond the basics? I'm not sure man's purpose is to provide all he needs by himself/for himself. Cooperation between individuals seems to be more in line with my thinking of what we need to do to fulfill our full purpose.

Yep give people more time off the farm for higher purposes... or as the bumper sticker says:

__________________
"What would you do with a brain if you had one?" -Dorothy

"Well, then ignore what I have to say and go with what works for you." -Eliot Coleman

[QUOTE=Callieslamb;5093612
Anyone have any luck creating a community - not commue, but a community of like-minded folks that you barter with? Anyone grow/raise things with future bartering in mind? I can see myself having too many apples and an extra lamb - I'd be willing to trade for a pig or some grain. But so far, I've made no steps in that direction. I have plenty of people that say they want me to grow things for them, but I never see the color of their money.[/QUOTE]

I have a great community up here. We don't all live super close to each other or on the same land as a commune, in fact we just moved an hour away to a place with a LOT more land and a barn that supports our needs...but we still go to get-together's with these friends (7 couples including me and my husband). We have developed a system that works for all of us over the years, for instance we know that one couple is going to have a wood cutting/splitting/stacking party every fall...we create a pot luck get together around it, bring the family and after the work is done we eat and relax and catch up....they all know that if we have hogs that we'll have a slaughter day, and we do the same thing....this year they took home some of the pork and repaid us in homemade bbq sauce...we'll also get some of their strawberries and asparagus as those are two crops we don't have growing here. We kind of keep tally in our heads....and we're a small enough group that it's pretty easy.
I seem to be the only person in the group that can grow tomatoes, so I grow plenty and barter them off with the group for other crops that they grow. We also have a day or week where we get together with all of our extra produce and can or freeze...and trade whatever we don't need for whatever extra other people have. That we we're not only making the work more fun, but we're gaining variety as well. We communicate our needs, get together enough that we can discuss this kind of stuff and we look out for each other. We also have our "other" friends that aren't necessarily part of the group, but may want certain produce or meats or time (we barter time a LOT), and we extend to those people as well...or sometimes just give names and drum up business for each other.
I realize I'm pretty lucky though...not everyone has this available to them. I mean, one of the women in this group I've known since i was 5...another went to high school with us...a few of the others were our husbands friends from high school/grade school...that doesn't happen very often..most people outgrow their childhood friends. The biggest thing that makes this work is trust....and clear communication..without those two things a bartering system just wouldn't work.

I have read of people asking how to grow, harvest thresh and clean wheat. That is an example of where it is really cost effect to find a farmer and buy it direct off the combine. To hand raise and harvest 1000 sq ft if wheat, then thresh and clean. Even today with wheat in the $8 range. Doing it yourself would value your time in the pennies/hour.