Most Americans think that miles of machine-planted row crops and crowded feedlots are required to feed everyone—that without large-scale, industrial agriculture, with its chemical inputs and GMOs, we would all starve to death.

Even people who know that organic agriculture is just as productive as industrial agriculture often think you need to have acres of land to grow all your own food. Here's why this is totally false…

How Much Land is Enough?

As any of the millions of subsistence farmers and smallholders around the world will tell you, depending on the quality of your land and the size of your family, you can grow all the food you need in a very small space.

It simply requires designing a food production system that works with natural processes to make the most of what you have. (See above image of the Russian dacha neighborhoods where everyone's yard is full of food.)

If you want to develop your land for food production, the following infographic shows just how much land is needed to be self sufficient, including generating all the solar energy you need to run your home.

According to this image, you need a mere 2 acres!

But I think their estimates for crops are actually too high.

Here are three examples of extreme productivity on very little land:

Growing Power – On a 2-acre urban lot in Milwaukee, Will Allen grows over a million pounds of food every year, including thousands of fish, and a livestock inventory of chickens, goats, and bees.

– On a 2-acre urban lot in Milwaukee, Will Allen grows over a million pounds of food every year, including thousands of fish, and a livestock inventory of chickens, goats, and bees. The Urban Homestead – A family of four produces most of their own food and $60,000 a year on just a fifth of an acre.

– A family of four produces most of their own food and $60,000 a year on just a fifth of an acre. Singing Frogs Farm – Just 3 harvested acres on this farm bring in over $100,000 an acre, using low water methods that sequester carbon and generate topsoil.

Using techniques and principles in the resources below, you can potentially grow all your food on as little as a quarter of an acre! Most people in the suburbs could start living off their land today!

Resources for Small Scale Self-Sufficiency

Planning and Maintaining Your Homestead

In recent years, homesteading and self-sufficiency have become popular—even trendy—and dozens of books have popped up that promise to teach you how to do it all.

My favorite of these are The Suburban Micro-Farm, The Backyard Homestead and Your Custom Homestead.

Your Custom Homestead doesn't really teach you gardening or homesteading skills. Rather, it takes you through a 21-day process that moves you closer to your homesteading dreams, whether you live in an apartment in the city, or on 100 acres in the middle of nowhere.

This book examines different motivations for homesteading, defines exactly what modern-day homesteading means, and then takes you through the prep-work and actual processes of beginning a homesteading lifestyle that will perfectly fit your unique situation.

The Suburban Micro-Farm teaches you how to grow food with permaculture principles, so you can get the most productivity out of a small space—while still passing HOA aesthetic standards.

This book will show you how to grow your own fruits, herbs, and vegetables on a busy schedule, improve your soil and save on water, as well as help keep you on track across the growing season, so you feel a sense of accomplishment for your efforts.

And if you want to make a little money from your backyard, The Suburban Micro-Farm has some great ideas for that, too.

The Backyard Homestead is a very comprehensive basic guide to homesteading, and will give you ideas and schematics for setting up all the gardens, coops, etc. you need to meet all your food needs on as little as a tenth of an acre!

There's also tons of organic gardening information, food preservation techniques, animal husbandry knowledge and more in the book.

The Backyard Homestead is a thorough primer to get you started homesteading in a small space.

Ultra-Productive Gardening

I first learned about intensive growing strategies as a horticulture student decades ago, when I was an intern getting certified as a Biointensive® Mini-Farming instructor with Ecology Action.

Biointensive gardening or mini-farming is an elegant, small-scale agriculture system that makes the bold claim of enabling you to "grow more vegetables than you ever thought possible on less land than you can imagine."

Ecology Action has been avidly teaching Biointensive techniques to small