Urban farming probably would be very subsistence in nature. At the turn of the (20th) century in the US, four farmers could feed ten people. I’m not clear on whether those four farmers were feeding themselves and six others or themselves and ten others. Obviously, there’s a big difference. However, even if we go with the smaller figure, forty percent of the population is producing food while sixty percent is doing something else. Urban farming probably would produce even smaller surpluses—at least while the experience base was building.
We’ve discussed ratios of farmers to non-farmers before, but I believe it’s a key factor in determining what the post-Exchange societies are like. According to Howling Wilderness, somewhat more than half of the pre-war US population is dead by January 2001. I won’t debate whether this figure is realistic other than to observe that the survival rate varies enormously from place to place. Colorado is supposed to have 90% of its pre-war population, while according to Howling Wilderness Arizona, New Mexico, and Nevada are virtual wastelands. Even in my considerably more optimistic Thunder Empire, only twenty percent of pre-war Arizonans are alive in January 2001; about 60% of the survivors live in the three counties in the southeastern part of the state.
Mind, I’m not knocking subsistence farming. The more folks survive to more stable times, the quicker the march back up the ladder of progress will be by, say, 2010. Really, that has been one of the main points of Thunder Empire; the goal of the leadership has been to keep as many Americans alive while the post-Exchange situation sorts itself out. In due time, improved practices should result in more efficient farming methods and an increase in the non-farming population. I guess I’m supporting Mo’s thesis that urban farmers supplement, while the majority of the food comes in from outside the urban area in a reproduction of the situation in Krakow.
Webstral
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