The TRUTH about SELF SUFFICIENCY - How much FOOD do Homesteaders Really Grow?

The truth about self sufficiency - How much can you REALLY GROW?
In this video, it's Revealed! HOW MUCH FOOD Homesteaders are actually growing!
Can You Grow ALL Your Food? 1000+ Homesteads help us answer that question.

[meganestep]

Even before grocery stores farmers and homesteaders still purchased pantry staples from mercantiles.

[anneyday]

A lot of the reason I am able to grow such a high percentage of what I eat, has to to with CHANGING what I eat. I no longer eat high processed snack foods, and my vegetable variety is limited to what succeeds in the garden, this was a no broccoli year for example, but I had sweet potatoes in many, many meals and thank goodness for the abundance canned the year before, when this was a drought year. Also, both reducing the amount of meat I consume, and changing recipes to use different meat than called for has made it easier to produce nearly all I need.

[alexandrafletcher]

I’m really enjoying these polled videos where you get other homesteaders involved. Nice way to involve the community and gives a nice variety

[tbrown]

Thank you for this realistic (and humorous) insight on growing your own food. We’re in our late 60s and find some things too challenging and can’t imagine reaching a 90% goal as some u-tubers claim. We do what we can and feel good about that. Blessings.

[livingwithflores]

I definitely think that you can be self sufficient with a lot of work. However, I think what we need to really focus on is building community and realizing that we dont have to do it all ourselves. If you build community one family can take care of dairy the other can focus on fruits etc... What are your thoughts?

[soronos]

We got our food, water, and energy to 100%. It took lots of planning. We’ve been scaling up our model over the last ten years. We started with just an acre. Now we’re growing out of the 12 we’re currently on.
Making systems that maximized outputs. Trees produce most our food. Hazelnuts are one of the most important things we mass planted. We made detailed plans on how many calories we needed. I eat 4K calories a day which requires about 2 full cows a year plus fish, eggs, and wild game. All of the animals are raised on site in the woods and pastures. All the animals waste is composted and then turned into BSF food or worm composter food. BSFs go birds and fish. Worm castings go to trees and garden. The homestead produces so much we sell the excess off to local restaurants owned by friends we’ve made. We live below the 37th parallel so we can grow year round. This would be way harder if we lived up north like these brave souls do.

[bradsimpson]

It's easy to fall in love with the idea of only eating what you grow and raise yourself. It feels wonderful to get to a point where you CAN do that(if the supply chain collapsed tomorrow, nobody here is going to starve). But there's a reason we've evolved as a society, and work in groups.

The buying freedom that comes from being even 50% self-sufficient is huge. Even if you don't shrink your grocery budget at all, it feels GREAT to support that local coffee roaster, bakery, neighbourhood deli, etc., and not give that money to the faceless Wal-Mart billionaires that actively look for ways to exploit their employees. And before long, you want to become part of that food community(or we did, at least).

For the last four years, I've been packing CSA garden-share boxes. We delivered fresh fruit and veg to a hundred and twenty families every week for six months last year. We showed up at every in-town farmer's market and sold produce there. We made significant contributions to the local food bank and helped get something green into the diets of the low-income community that depends on them. We supplied salad greens and grape tomatoes to a local restaurant to be enjoyed by all of our friends in the neighbourhood.

For us, it feels way better to be actively supporting other people in our community with local, responsibly and sustainably-grown produce and buying other locally-made products than it does to be off on our own little food island.

[emmaprophet]

I always enjoy and learn much from watching your videos. I am much older than most of the homesteaders that have programs on YouTube, so I have a very different view. No one in the past ever was totally self sufficient and independent. Everyone had to buy foundational foods like flour, rice, sugar, coffee, etc. With starting out, start slow and build. Learn how to grow a garden that provides you with staples that will keep you going, corn, squash, beans and potatoes and how to preserve them, along with raising poultry. With just that, you can keep yourself going in a pinch.

[jenniexfuller]

WOW! I’m so glad you did this poll! We got a rocky start as my husband was diagnosed with cancer 10 days before we moved to our homestead. So although we’ve been here for 2 years, we are behind about a year because of the surgery, treatment, and recovery from chemo. I harvested our first meat chicken (and extra rooster) and it’s still in the freezer. I also harvested our first quail the other day and we had that for dinner on Valentine’s Day. I felt the same way about maybe making our family sick by butchering myself. But I even made appetizers out of the quail hearts and the kids liked them. 😲 Now they’ve gotten nutrients they otherwise would not have gotten from our meat. Becoming more self sufficient is so exciting. Love the self sufficiency meter! 😂. Also this affirms for me the thought that if we suddenly had to go back to victory gardens of old, America would be in BIG trouble. Hopefully everyone is slowly starting to build skills.

[dallasburgess]

After seeing this, I am extremely proud of my family. We are at 50% year 1-2. We started chickens and pigs and sheep right away, butchered 3 Rams and a pig in 6 months. (Got rid of the sheep already...little troublemakers 😜) Didn't get a deer, but got a black bear for the freezer. Meat birds and eggs really took off (large incubator) Lake beside us has a lot of Kokanee in ice fishing season. Got some Ostrich for a fast producing beef-like meat. Got lucky with fruit - our farm can produce mass amounts of wild Saskatoon berries and small wild strawberries. Can easily get 5-10lbs a day in summer. Our garden didn't do well with some items, but was crazy good with squash, pumpkin, peas, beans and spices. We are on-grid, but heat with wood. This video was really informative, and encouraging to me (I'm always pushing for better & BIG thanks to my new neighbor, he's been a godsend - don't forget how much local guys with experience can help you along) My son says to say hi to Super Mario! Thanks for the content, always look forward to it!

[timberstoneranch]

This is one of the best videos I have ever seen on this topic. I really appreciate the honesty.

[soniaspangenberg]

This is a great encouragement, especially for those of us who tend to expect too much of ourselves. Give it time girl.

[SgtSnausages]

I keep a spreadsheet.

Despite 2+ decades of trying to be 100% ... my best year was 78% of our Family Calories coming from our own.

[dreamersfarm]

Milking our first goat was exciting, I ordered a half gallon less weekly of our family’s raw cow’s milk… then 1 gallon less, then 2. It was exciting to have a goat finally saving us money instead of costing!

(She ended up being a jerk to other goat’s kids… to the point of injury- not just showing She’s boss.)

Because she was in milk, I sold her for $100 more than we bought her for, and she gave us a couple months of milk contribution and two beautiful doelings we’re keeping. So she was a wonderful investment as well as all the hard work.

Very excited to be living this life. We’re still getting 8-10 daily eggs from our 17 chickens. Very excited about that.

Learning to butcher our own pigs would be awesome!

[richardanderson]

The phrase “homesteading” covers a broad range of endeavors. Many want to produce a fair amount of their food, while others concentrate on other aspects of self sufficiency, like forestry and hunting. The one aspect you touched on really needs to be emphasized to newbies, that of infrastructure. While there are really minimalist approaches to most things, minimalist and productivity don’t belong in the same sentence. If one is going to be a homesteader it is a commitment to becoming a jack of all trades. As such, one should have the good tools of those trades and develop the skills to use them efficiently. This is particularly true as you age. I’m 69 and to dream I can do what I could at 39 when we bought our farm would be pure delusional. I acquired a rototiller for our tractor last year to do the large crop garden (corn, squash, and asparagus). I’m not retiring our little rear tine tiller, but I’m not going to spend hours behind it doing our quarter acre main garden. Similarly I now have a bucket on the tractor and use the wheelbarrow and shovel a lot less. These coming year’s projects include a new wood shed and a dedicated food processing/preservation structure to move the mess out of my barn (which isn’t the cleanest) and out of my kitchen. This is particularly important to me for hygiene getting the heat of canning out of the house in summer. Even if you buy all the tools, equipment and construction materials on the cheap, it is a whole lot more money than most people imagine….and a whole lot more work if you cut corners. If I had it to do over again, I would have built a root cellar when I last had an excavator on the property and still might if I live long enough.

[alexanderboeve]

You are my enthusiasm-therapists 🙂 Veggies almost self-sufficient, fruit sadly not yet, maybe 20%. Chickens provide eggs and the food forest is in development. Year 6 ;-)

[kimcritchfield]

New fan here. Love all the data. I’m 6 years in, on 2/3’s acre (only 1/3 for farm) city and work full time. I’m at about 30-40% for two of us. I have chickens, did meat chickens last year, pig growing now. Have 22 fruit trees, and am in a Herdshare where I milk every other week and get 4 gallons. I’m even doing hard cheese!!

[enosyodermattieyoder]

Finally this was a winter that we barely bought any veggies. We grew enough potatoes and didn't have to buy any this winter

[DeDaanste]

This really makes me feel good. In 56, health issues, living alone and moved from the centre of a Dutch town to a village in Hungary to start my own little homestead. It has been 10 months now and I have 18 chickens for eggs and meat when necessary. So grateful they kept laying eggs all winter! Never under 3 eggs a day in the coldest darkest period. Now starting up a vegetable garden, and have a few old fruit trees in the garden. Maybe I will start with a milk goat next year. My savings are gone now, had to buy a new roof... So it will be interesting to see if I die of hunger or will make it and flourish. 🤣😅😂 I laugh but to be honest, I am scared as hell! But I rather die here of hunger than stay alive in the overcrowded Netherlands. Love your video's!!

[mountainmama]

My family is very large. We were so blessed this hunting season to get 6 deer, plus have 1 or 2 given to us. It has been amazing! I Am trying hard to put in much more of our food this year. It is such a challenge to grow even 50% of our food!