I mean they didn’t farm the whole acre, their garden plot was maybe 10 x 10 ft.
More than I can do in my town home, but not crazy.
Also economies of scale is a poor argument when it comes to farming. Prices on many crops is fixed by the Government. So yes they can produce food much cheaper, but they fix the price to be higher. If it wasn’t for the government corn at our current rate of production would be nearly free, but it’s artificially inflated.
I’m saying that whatever it was your grandparents had 50 years ago, the costs (including opportunity costs) are totally different.
I can work an hour at McDonald’s, for $18, and earn enough to buy 10 pounds of tomatoes at $1.80/lb. Growing 10 pounds of tomatoes is gonna take me a lot more than an hour of work, even if the land is free. The tradeoffs for me in this moment are going to be different from what your grandparents faced in the 70’s.
Either way, whether it’s worth the effort to drive for Uber depends on whether you already own a car. Whether you can publish a cheap indie game on the app store or steam depends on whether you already own a laptop. And whether it’s cost effective to grow your own food depends on whether you have access to land, sun, soil, and water.
Also economies of scale is a poor argument when it comes to farming
For small scale food gardening it absolutely matters. Picking berries, planting seedlings, spreading compost, getting rid of pests (either through pesticides or things like ladybugs), productivity per worker hour depends a lot on the scale. It’s really, really hard to be cost competitive with the grocery store in just pure worker hours, even if your own time is worth less than $5/hour.
Sounds like they already had something that dramatically changes the cost/benefit analysis, compared to someone considering gardening from scratch.
Someone with a few raised beds isn’t going to be able to compete with the economies of scale of a full acre of farmland.
I mean they didn’t farm the whole acre, their garden plot was maybe 10 x 10 ft.
More than I can do in my town home, but not crazy.
Also economies of scale is a poor argument when it comes to farming. Prices on many crops is fixed by the Government. So yes they can produce food much cheaper, but they fix the price to be higher. If it wasn’t for the government corn at our current rate of production would be nearly free, but it’s artificially inflated.
My grandparents also had a garden plot of food plants, and my parents too. It didn’t take much money or work.
I’m saying that whatever it was your grandparents had 50 years ago, the costs (including opportunity costs) are totally different.
I can work an hour at McDonald’s, for $18, and earn enough to buy 10 pounds of tomatoes at $1.80/lb. Growing 10 pounds of tomatoes is gonna take me a lot more than an hour of work, even if the land is free. The tradeoffs for me in this moment are going to be different from what your grandparents faced in the 70’s.
Either way, whether it’s worth the effort to drive for Uber depends on whether you already own a car. Whether you can publish a cheap indie game on the app store or steam depends on whether you already own a laptop. And whether it’s cost effective to grow your own food depends on whether you have access to land, sun, soil, and water.
For small scale food gardening it absolutely matters. Picking berries, planting seedlings, spreading compost, getting rid of pests (either through pesticides or things like ladybugs), productivity per worker hour depends a lot on the scale. It’s really, really hard to be cost competitive with the grocery store in just pure worker hours, even if your own time is worth less than $5/hour.