Cereals with the exceptions of corn and quinoa aren’t really worth it on a hobby farm, which anything under an acre certainly is. Oats, wheat, rye ect are all a pain to harvest and process. Growing corn you can do three sisters and really produce a ton of food per square meter. Quinoa grows kinda bushy but you can stick it anywhere and when it’s ready to harvest all you have to do is shake it.
Wild rice gets an honorable mention if you’ve got the right spot for it as it essential self seeds needs vary little care and all you really have to do is smack it with stick into tarp to harvest it.
It is not very efficient per acre, but it is very efficient in terms of labour required and much more amenable to mechanised farming compared to potatoes.
Grain, famous for it’s per-acre productivity
Economies of scale? Never met 'em.
(wait, isn’t grain super productive per acre or am i missing something here)
It comes down to economies of scale.
In the US grains like corn and wheat go for about $4.25-$5.25 per pound.
One acre of land can produce about 2.3 tons (48,000 pounds) of wheat.
So being generous, lets say you could make $240,000 per acre.
Now you have to factor in the costs to grow, harvest, process, store, and ship that. Along with that you need to equipment to do all of this.
Ultimately, a large farm might spend more initially for bigger equipment, there going to beat out smaller farms by shear volume.
oh, i see. I was thinking kCal/acre instead of cash value/acre, assuming you were eating this instead of selling it
Even if you were, you’d still need alot more than a small portion of one acre of you were trying to grow enough to eat throughout the year.
Cereals with the exceptions of corn and quinoa aren’t really worth it on a hobby farm, which anything under an acre certainly is. Oats, wheat, rye ect are all a pain to harvest and process. Growing corn you can do three sisters and really produce a ton of food per square meter. Quinoa grows kinda bushy but you can stick it anywhere and when it’s ready to harvest all you have to do is shake it.
Wild rice gets an honorable mention if you’ve got the right spot for it as it essential self seeds needs vary little care and all you really have to do is smack it with stick into tarp to harvest it.
In calories produced/(year * acre), stuff like potatoes are way more productive than wheat or sunflower or soy IIRC
It is not very efficient per acre, but it is very efficient in terms of labour required and much more amenable to mechanised farming compared to potatoes.