Can a Smallholding be truly Sustainable?

When I look at some of the searches that lead people to this blog, it’s obvious that there are some out there trying to decide if it’s possible to make a living from running a smallholding. I’m not the right person to answer that question, as I have never needed to produce a surplus. My aim is simply to meet our own needs, for food and fuel. The question, can a smallholding be sustainable, depends on your definition of sustainability.

As it stands, our planning system, in fact every aspect of our current way of life, seems designed to make us exploit our world, and bind us more tightly to Consumerism. I’ve thought about this quite a lot, and came across this article recently. This guy writes the words that I feel. I fyou click on his nmae it will take you to the article.

Joel Salatin

Our planning system is designed to protect the countryside from development, but also prevents people who would ‘tread lightly’ on the land from buying small plots of agricultural land, to live from. You cannot just buy a plot, put up a yurt, or a caravan, and meet your own needs. It has to be a business proposition, capable of making a profit. It’s the difference between living, and making a living. Meeting our needs, or consuming.

If it isn’t possible to obtain a plot of land to live on, the normal alternative is to buy an existing smallholding. This avoids the planning problem, so it is theoretically possible to just meet your needs. The reality is that they are not cheap. Consequently, either you need to make money first, and buy a place outright, or you need to earn an income. The former takes time, the latter  binds you just as tightly to our current sytem, needing either a separate income, or making a profit from the smallholding. Even if you are fortunate enough to  be able to buy a smallholding outright, you still need an income to pay council tax.

As for sustainability, I cannot see how exporting fertility (food), away from the smallholding, can ever be sustainable. That fertility has to be replaced, which means removing it from somewhere else. Systems that only harvest a small proportion of the total vegetative growth, like orchards, or forest gardens, seem the most likely to be sustainable, especially if there are enough support species to put organic matter back into the soil.

Sadly, we are stuck with the current system until we dismantle it, or it breaks apart under the stress of Peak Oil, with the latter probably nearer, and more likely. Until then, I shall just keep planting trees, teach myself to graft trees, and put myself in a position where I can look after my family, and help and encourage others.

Take Care

Deano

2 thoughts on “Can a Smallholding be truly Sustainable?

  1. annisveggies

    Hi Deano

    Like you I think in terms of not exporting fertility from the garden. I won’t use the council green bin for recycling garden “waste” as I recycle it all within the garden. Sometimes I have had to relent as when the tree surgeon took away the wood from pollarding some trees but it feels wrong to move fertility around.

    Anni

    Reply
    1. Deano Post author

      Hi Anni
      As a burner of wood, that made me chuckle. Just read ‘The Humanure Handbook’, by Joe Jenkins, and ‘Holy Shit’ by Gene Logsdon. Looking to plug a couple more leaks of fertility :-)
      Deano

      Reply

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