Growing fresh fruits and vegetables. Raising livestock. Attempting to live a more self-sustainable lifestyle. Today if you see the value in doing these things you are probably part of a growing movement that has had the title “Homesteading” attached to it. If you are, or desire to be a homesteader you are certainly not alone.
When our Grandparents and Great Grandparents did those things, they most likely did them out of necessity. In the “old days” people lived that lifestyle because they knew of no other way to feed and sustain themselves and their families. It was just an everyday way of life for most people. During and following the industrial revolution we saw many more men going to work in jobs that removed them from the family land.
With that we developed new ways to feed the nation. Large scale agriculture started to gain momentum and eventually became the standard for food production in this nation. After decades of that we started to see the land fail. The nutrients were being depleted and the impact on the environment was taking its toll. The use of machinery and fossil fuels were devastating to the land and to the sustainability of these practices. Recently we are starting to see the reversion back to the old ways. The small home and community based agricultural models are starting to surface everywhere.
The introduction of Urban homesteading or farming is gaining popularity once again. People like Jules Dervaes started growing food in their backyards. He and his three adult children have grown as much as 6000 pounds of food on one fifth of an acre of land in California. The food being produced on these small-scale farms or “Homesteads” is better quality than that found in the large grocery stores. It is fresher. It has more nutrient density and lacks harmful preservatives in many cases.
In my opinion, we can all benefit from these homes based agricultural models. Weather we live on a farm or in an apartment we can enjoy these fresh fruits and vegetables. If you have land and can raise chickens or goats or rabbits, or any livestock of your choosing you can be able to increase the quality of the food you and your family consumes. You may even be able to impact the quality of food that your community consumes if you grow enough to sell at farmers markets or a simple roadside stand.
Even if you live in an apartment and only have a porch or balcony to grow a few containers of food bearing plants, you can make an impact. If everyone started to implement these practices we could change significantly the way this nation gets fed and in doing so we can start to reclaim some of the social and personal freedoms that have been taken away from individual Americans in previous decades. We can once again have control over what we eat and how we live. Thanks for reading. God bless you.