The Backyard Revolution
When the Industrial Revolution began to take hold, countless country bumpkins flocked to the cities, lured by the promise of money, a better life, some sort of future out of the dung heap. What they found was enslavement, death, disease, and crippling poverty at the hands of often cruel masters who grew wealthy on the backs of the new urban poor. Of course there has always been poverty, especially in agriculture. Farmers have always been undervalued in any age and have always lived close to the boards. But farmers have generally had one salvation–they can grow their own food. We may not be rich when judged by the scale of society, when viewed in terms of monetary value, but when adjusted for land, food produced for family, and earnings saved, farmers do quite well when they participate in the agrarian economy and live like true cottagers.¬† Moreover, in the 18th Century more than just farmers raised food–almost every one of every social strata raised some amount of food.((William Cobbett, in his Cottage Economy, outlines very nicely how this may happen.))
As people moved out of the countryside and into cities they lost the land on which to raise self-supporting crops and livestock. In the slums of the Machine Age, there were no backyards and the dank conditions prohibited the healthy keeping of animals for food. The nature of agriculture changed. Sheep, long a supplier of fertility and wool, were now grown larger to provide a burgeoning labor force with cheap cuts of mutton, or at least their bones for broth. The rift between country and city widened. Farmers were farmers, country folk: rubes to be avoided. More recently, with the exception of the two World Wars, raising one’s own food was looked upon with suspicion. There was a brief resurgence in the 1970′s of a “back to the land movement” and an awareness that self-sufficiency could be had on even a limited scale. This attempt at the “Good Life” didn’t last long and many who participated in it were left out in the cold–oddballs in a society which expected order and conformity. The myth of plentiful, cheap food, pleasure and entertainment masked the reality of what was really happening.
We are now 9 years into a new century. The blindness of the past 100 years is staring at us full in the face and we are scrambling to change modes. People are once again turning to their backyards to help them survive. They are rediscovering what they can raise, and how much. Globally, we are returning to a pre-industrial mindset when backyards supplemented what we earned and helped us to survive. The vaule of a backyard garden has always been known, by those who value fresh, tasty, wholesome food, but now more and more people are digging up the lawn and planting seeds. But let’s not forget livestock.
In our small agrarian economy of the backyard we can raise enough meat to keep us for a year, eggs for breakfast a few times a week–with enough to barter with–and fertilizer free for the taking. If you have enough room and time, dairy–goat, sheep or cow milk–could be had. And, I am not talking 5 acres here. I am referring to lots 1/4 acre((10,000 square feet)) or more. Chickens would, of course, be the simplest to keep. They are inexpensive, easy to raise, and can be quite productive. They are great recyclers of kitchen scraps and garden trimmings. Their manure is vital to great fertility. But let’s take this a step further. If you can keep some chickens then you can certainly keep a few rabbits. Raised in cages, the chickens can keep the area underneath clean and pest free, or you can use the manure on the garden. A 10 pound doe can raise 320 pounds of meat in a year.((By breeding her daughters you can easily raise more meat than a steer can produce on vastly less land.)) Rabbits dress easier than broiler chickens and are healthier. What’s even better is, if you live on a small lot, your neighbors might never know you even have rabbits…until they come to dinner.
If you have a bit more land in your backyard, you can keep a few pigs. Pigs always do better in pairs at a minimum. It is more work, of course, but they are content enough in a sty as long as it is mucked out daily and they have access to fresh air. It isn’t the same as the ideal of pasture raised pork, but it will be vastly better than its factory-farmed cousin. If pigs aren’t for you than how about the aforementioned goat, sheep or cow? There is enough room on a 1/2 acre, especially if you have access to roadsides or common land for grazing, to inexpensively keep a dairy animal. All the while, you can use the manure to provide fertility for the garden. You can raise food for your family and for your new backyard food factory. This isn’t free-range, pastured meat and dairy, I know. But with the welfare of the animals being looked after, anything you can raise in your backyard will be vastly better than anything you can find in the supermarket.
It might not be easy. It might not be sane. But if you are fed up with high prices, poor quality, unhealthy or deadly foods and want to keep you freedom to choose, then join the revolution. Dig up some yard, plant some seeds, get some chicks. Take control of your food security and safety. It’s not as hard as you may think.
Technorati Tags: backyard revolution, grow your own, farming, gardening, agriculture, agrarianism, food safety, food security. livestock keeping
About The Author
Hi Podchef–
I’d love to have chickens in my backyard (I live on 2/3 of an acre!), but the borough I live in doesn’t allow it. I’m going to try to have that changed, but this is the unfortunate case for many urbanites (and sub-urbanites) who’d like to raise more of their own food. You can have barking dogs (some potentially dangerous), but a few clucking hens are strictly verboten!