[Webstral]

How much farmland is needed in Poland depends a great deal on variety of factors. The more I learn about food production, the more I understand that a) I know very little and b) many factors play into the yield in calories of a given acreage of land. Regarding Poland, we probably can assume that the crops being grown in Poland in 1997 are generally well-suited to the climate, the soil, the rainfall, etc. Obviously, there will be some exceptions. How much human labor goes into each acre affects the output. Farmland used for large-scale farming prior to the war may be in good condition, or it may have been turned into a hydroponic medium by petrochemical farming. It’s possible for a single productive acre to feed five or more people, provided half or more of the people are working a crop well-suited to intensive agriculture and the farmers know what they are doing. Rice and sweet potatoes are good examples of crops that perform well with [different kinds of] intensive agriculture.

The breakdown of order in Europe will prompt a consolidation of the population into defensible communities. This is not new news, but the consolidation of the population will favor labor-intensive use of smaller parcels of land over prewar norms. This will be true in most locations where security is an issue. (One could even say that security is an agricultural resource on par with water, sunlight, good soil, and labor.)