absolutely everything would become labor intensive, and you are right, poeple will need to do that labor ...

I would still worry about producing enough for yourself. I can't grow grain, and the things that I do grow sometimes fail ... fungus, ants, not enough rain, something I have no idea about, failure for seeds to germinate. I've done some work to have some ability to produce for myself and some others if needed, but my confidence level of success is not high, since I've tried it and done it, and sometimes it doesn't work.

Even if the plants do produce, then you have to process it, and store it. Gettting things to last long enough for when you need it isn't a done deal either from my eperience. You have to really have done it, learning when needed is likely too late if there isn't someone who has done it, there watching and participating.

Hey, even if you know how to produce grain, you may end up consulting with a lot of people, and if they also produce - that might fill a lot of bellies. Mayb epeople you don't know today, on land you've never seen. Knowing is half the battle as they say.

 

Film,

Still, ...... for a skilled survivalist, efforts will be made to reduce labor intensive tasks to max.

My plans involve local trips only by boat powered by wind hitting the rigged-up sail.

We've got a mast attaching electric-generator windmill that can attach to a tree. This would be for emergency lighting in case someone got injured.

Now grain growing and harvesting is indeed labor intensive. Fishing is not. In fact, some use fishing trips for recreation.

 

Interesting video! I can't imagine harvesting fields like this by hand:

It was hard enough on my back doing my itty bitty plot of wheat.

 

yes I know what you are talking about,, I grew a smaller plot to keep seeds viable and that was more than I wanted also,, to try growing enough to have/be able to use would be a overwhelming task ,, and that is just to get it to the point of harvested , then all the work of threshing/grinding

for my few plots/limited size and just as a "seed" source I used a bag hung on my side [sort of like a fruit pickers basket/bag] and just snapped the grain heads off and dropped into the bag,,, leaving almost all the stock/straw in the plot to be tilled in as compost the next time it was tilled[both were spring wheats]

to thresh I took a lesson from the wild rice harvesters and dumped the grain heads onto a tarp and walked/stomped on them to thresh and winnowed them out by tossing it into the air when I had a decent breeze letting the grain fall back onto the tarp

 

I have a friend who has operated a non-profit seed foundation since the 1970s. He has hundreds of species of grains that he keeps viable. Often growing tiny parcels of each grain, some as small as 20' by 20'. Each is grown every four years.

 

Could you elaborate on this, please? Ancient grains are getting harder to find. There were two places I used to get "old" varieties of wheat and I either cannot find them or they don't have the seed. I do need to dig out my seed collection and catalog it

I have recommended this book many times, "Small Scale Grain Raising" by Gene Logsdon. A small plot is doable for many and a good practice skill.

A place to look for inspiration is the Amish. I the fall, the shocks of grain are a testament to people and work ethics.

 

at least local grown wont be sprayed with glyphosate to aid drying just to save money at the dryer. Canada & Europe wont even buy it.

 

I'm a grain farmer myself, and can confirm that without modern machinery growing enough to feed yourself and a family would require enormous amounts of work---manual work--which means lots of "hands".

That's why pioneer families were so large. That's why medieval manors needed hordes of serfs on their estates.

Not only is it a a lot of work, but it is also concentrated in certain periods of VERY intense labor, mostly in the Spring (planting) and the Fall (harvesting).

My dad often talked about having to harvest ear corn by hand. Can't begin to imagine how much it took to hand-pick the ears from 80 acres of corn, and toss them on a wagon. And then having to unload it with nothing more than a shovel.

Without modern machinery, it would be near impossible. Some have talked about having horses or oxen to help, as the pioneers did. But in a SHTF, it would be a long time until we were able to go back to "mule power". It takes considerable time to raise horses, lots of work to "break" them also. Also, where would you get the tack to hitch the horse? Except for very few craftsmen and hobbyists, they just don't exist anymore. And the implements that they could pull? Except maybe in some museums, you wouldn't find any.

And then there's this fact: only 2% of the people in the U.S. are farmers. Who have at least some knowledge of growing crops and livestock. The remaining 98% are mostly clueless.

Again--the only way to do it would be to have a great many hands and labor available. Able bodied people willing to work would be at a premium in a true societal and technological collapse.

 

Folks need to get really busy practicing these skills now, to make sure that you know how to do it, to make sure you have the appropriate equipment, and soil to be doing it.

 

Harvesting wheat in Nepal using a scythe (youtube.com)

Harvesting Wheat by Hand -- Foodmageddon, Ep. 20 - YouTube learn as you go....

Scythe Supply Wheat Harvest (youtube.com) off-the-shelf. Buy now while you still can.

***
Primitive Skills: How to Harvest Rice? (youtube.com) far more labor intensive. multiple parts

 

In the case of harvesting corn, entire families were needed to walk down the corn rows. Wrenching the ears off the stalks and tossing them into a horse-drawn wagon. My dad said they worked from dawn to dusk, everyone from kids eight years old up to the grandparents.

Dad recalled that in the mornings, when the ears were covered with frost, his gloves would soon become so soaked and wet that his hands became numb to the point where he couldn't feel anything.

"farmers used to harvest corn by picking it from the stalks with their bare hands. Whole families would head out at dawn to walk the rows with their horse drawn wagons. They'd try to pick fifty bushels, 2,800 pounds of corn, before lunch and another fifty bushels in the afternoon, often harvesting until dark."

It was done this way clear up until about World War II, when mechanical corn pickers finally became generally available.

Same thing with hay for animals. All done by hand. Back-breaking labor. And usually done at the height of the summer heat:

While these pictures may look quaint and nostalgic today, can you imagine the average city dweller--or indeed, most farmer--being able to do this sort of back breaking labor? I doubt it very much.

So in the context of the original post to this thread, yes--it would be a situation where you would need lots of hands, lots of help. And people willing and physically able to do this sort of work, just to survive.

 

While these pictures may look quaint and nostalgic today, can you imagine the average city dweller--or indeed, most farmer--being able to do this sort of back breaking labor? I doubt it very much.

I agree ,,,but hunger will lend some motivation to people to work,, the rest are going to get hungry pretty quick

 

It's inverted 200 years ago meat & fish were cheaper and was the bulk of their diet not grains, modern farming has inverted that, grains were what meat is today expensive commodities used more sparingly due to the labor intensity of planting, harvesting, and processing. A porter was a low-wage day laborer who unloaded cargo and a "porter" house steak was a cheap affordable cut of meat.

Same with vegetable oil they used mostly pig lard breeds of pig bred for fats such as Kunekune, Meishan, American Guinea Hog, Ossabaw, Mangalitsa, and Potbelly.

People also ate lots of foods that had a higher return or less labor like....

Jerusalem Artichoke
Potatoes
Asparagus
Blueberries
Beets
Chard
Fruit Trees
Rhubarb
Scallions, Shallots, Onions, Garlic
Kiwi Fruit
Black Berries

IMO...In a SHTF the absolute worst thing to try and grow are grains

 

It's inverted 200 years ago meat & fish were cheaper and was the bulk of their diet not grains, modern farming has inverted that, grains were what meat is today expensive commodities used more sparingly due to the labor intensity of planting, harvesting, and processing. A porter was a low-wage day laborer who unloaded cargo and a "porter" house steak was a cheap affordable cut of meat.

Same with vegetable oil they used mostly pig lard breeds of pig bred for fats such as Kunekune, Meishan, American Guinea Hog, Ossabaw, Mangalitsa, and Potbelly.

People also ate lots of foods that had a higher return or less labor like....

Jerusalem Artichoke
Potatoes
Asparagus
Blueberries
Beets
Chard
Fruit Trees
Rhubarb
Scallions, Shallots, Onions, Garlic
Kiwi Fruit
Black Berries

IMO...In a SHTF the absolute worst thing to try and grow are grains

its not just modern farming that inverted the meat to veggies diet,,

agriculture started in the mid east because that was where grains grew naturally[other than corn]

the roman armies carried sickles to gather grain as they traveled,,

" potage" was a grain based gruel that most of the poor/serfs were living on ,,,it was flavored by anything else they could gather/find to add to it

agree potatoes are a easier crop to grow and use on a year to year basis ,,,but much harder to store longer compared to grains so grains have a place ,,,maybe not in the first year or two ,,,but longer term they will be valuable for a few reasons

 

Everything mentioned in this thread I agree with. When I see people claim they will just learn to grow food for the first time when shtf. 99% of them will fail and probably starve. For how cheap bulk grain is vs the labor of raising it yourself I don't know why people don't store more if they have the space.

I am doing a test plot of wheat and feed corn this year. Last years corn went horrible (got 2 cups of kernels) but we are learning. I have more compost this year so hopefully we get better results.

I will check out the video tonight.

 

I have experimented with rices and grains from seed to table... It is a lot of work..... I am getting older and its not viable in my camp.

This is why I have bulk stored rice beans and grains that will probably out last me. This lets me spend my energies on other aspects of gardening and storage.

 

How did you de-hull your rices?

 

I agree with the original post. In the event of a really bad SHTF accompanied by technological collapse, it will take much more "people labor" to maintain the food supply.

Two big problems I can foresee with this. One is "physical" and the other is "attitude":

1) The large number of today's adults (and even young adults and teenagers) who are so out-of-shape, that they simply couldn't do much hard physical labor. At least for any length of time. Just look at the picture of farmers pitching hay with pitchforks, in my previous post. And doing this all day, perhaps in the hot sun of a July afternoon. My Dad and grandpa did it, and my dad told me how exhausting it was. But they did it. Just look at any old pictures of farmers and laborers from back in the day. There are NO fat people! They just burned too many calories doing their daily jobs.

2) The insular and selfish "me" attitude that so many modern people have today. It's true that going back to pre-technology agriculture will require much more labor than what is used today. Sure---you can offer food in return for labor on your "farm". But how many people today will actually do it? A few might do it. But so many today are used to living by themselves, and have never had to participate in any sort of real cooperative effort. They work at their day jobs, maybe by themselves in their office cubicle. Only minimally interacting with others. At night they commute home to their apartment or home, and at most--have some interaction with their families. They've never done any real interaction or built any relationships with their neighbors. They've never lifted a finger in any "real" physical labor in their entire lives. So why should they suddenly "cooperate" and be under the supervision of someone else, for such a basic necessity as food?

There's two ways they will react to this: if they and their families are truly feeling the pinch of hunger. They will either simply give-in and resign themselves to death by starvation. Or, they will have the attitude that you "need to SHARE!" your "excess" bounty of resources. And simply demand you hand over food. Or they will take it by force.

 

I agree it can be done ,, and even if it is at a calorie loss the advantages of having a food that can be stored longer term pretty easy would be worth it in my mind,, use the easier crops like potatoes to supplement any calorie loss of the grain .
not that I feel it would be a loss, but it will be a lot of work

,,it would be better in my mind to have a bowl of potato soup with a chunk of bread than just the soup

its the amount of work overall that I feel will require extra help,, you cant be digging potatoes and reaping grain at the same time.

so many post I have seen here the posters seem to think that everyone that gets close to the "homestead" is a liability,, and some will be ,but they also might be the best resource that can help out

here's two ways they will react to this: if they and their families are truly feeling the pinch of hunger. They will either simply give-in and resign themselves to death by starvation. Or, they will have the attitude that you "need to SHARE!" your "excess" bounty of resources. And simply demand you hand over food. Or they will take it by force.

I honestly do not see someone just "give in" and willing to die from starvation if the option to work for food was there..

the ones that demand you hand it over are going to be a threat no matter if you are willing to offer a work for food or not. so in a way they have little bearing on helping those willing to work and if there was half a dozen "invested" in working together to grow food they stand a better chance of stopping that sort of threat because its food coming out of their and families mouth as much as mine

 

Option #3- people get a major humbling, when they realize that the humble, truly grateful people are the ones more likely to be helped.

 

Through WWII, much of Brit farming was via manual labor.

See Wartime Farm Part 1 of 8 (youtube.com) part 1 of 8.

Sit down and watch the entire series - it will likely be a real wake up - and you just might learn something!

 

I love that series. Victorian Farm is another eye opening series. For readers, "A Game of Birds and Wolves: The Ingenious Young Women Whose Secret Board Game Helped Win World War II" discussed the food & calories situation in the UK during the war. It was portrayed as quite grave.

inMichigan

 

I didn't watch the video, and didn't read the replies. If the SHTF, I'll just cut down trees behind my house to make a field and then learn to grow grains. How hard could it be? They're plants. They just need sun, and they'll do their thing.
















Just kidding!

My plan for grains is mainly storage NOW before the SHTF. Growing and harvesting grain is labor intensive, and I've never done it before. We grow a good size garden each year (about 1000 square feet), so we're familiar with gardening, but that's far different from actually farming grain.

 

I didn't watch the video, and didn't read the replies. If the SHTF, I'll just cut down trees behind my house to make a field and then learn to grow grains. How hard could it be? They're plants. They just need sun, and they'll do their thing.
















Just kidding!

Not hard at all. Its like 8 swings of a stone ax. Obviously you want to upgrade to an iron ax as soon as possible to be the most efficient. Wait that was a Mine Craft knock off video game.

 

General observation not aimed anyone....

I can explain it to you, but I cannot understand it for you.

 

please do explain,, and I will do my best to understand

Im just not sure if not helping out a few others and helping them survive would have a down side,,,and I sure as hell feel that if I managed to "survive" 3 years on stored foods/gardens and dieing 5 or 6 years later than a "event" happened and being the last one alive in a hundred miles is not a "win" in my mind

that seems to be the "mindset" of many,, if you are the last to die is it worth it?? we all are going to no matter what

 

Well corn compared to hand digging several acres of potatoes is not so hard. Most stuff on the farm is hard work, even harder when you have to do it without the proper machinery for the easier job.

 

agree ,, but then the potato is being washed off away from being ready to cook/eat ,,, not many grains are and corn to be efficient part of a diet is not even if we consider shelling as washing it.. so there will be more calories expended to prep it,, and lol washing a spud is easier than shelling a cob

then there is also the fact that corn requires pretty high inputs along with it being a longer grow time with it needing to dry on the stock,,

 

Also lurking in the background of this topic is 'how much land it take to feed one person for a year". I always read any articles very carefully that imply 'feed a family' on this tiny plot by doing X. I'm always trying to determine, is it 'feed' as in that is all you eat, or a source of side dishes. That link is to work to compute the 'full calorie needs'. Depending on many, many factors; for me, I'm thinking 1 to 2 acres per person once the land is tamed and put back into production.

 

It certainly varies a lot depending on climate and fertility of soil.

Common vegetables, grains, chickens, rabbits, pigs all add to the efficiency of subsistence agriculture. Adding a milk producing animal adds a bunch to make a healthful living. Growing feed for the animals does add complications but world wide it is generally considered advantageous. One big thing many people overlook is that grazing animals can subsist on marginal land, (mountains, arid land, even snow covered in the arctic).

 

Kidneys and liver are loaded with nutrition. Lard is a stable fat. Both things a poorly fed person needs.
I ordered a meat grinder awhile back just so the organ meats can be incorporated into the hamburger, better than eating plain. I have to be really, really hungry to eat plain liver.

 

There was a farm that my GrandDad lived on as essentially a 'share cropper.' GrandDad put out a tobacco crop and tended livestock for rent and a small share of crop sales. The owner had mules and a couple of tractors along with equipment for both.
My family/group has several horses but no equipment or training for pulling ploughs etc. Fortunately we have good relations with several Amish who live near us and I'm confident we can trade/barter with them in event of shtf.
There was a small 'bottom' on this farm with a tricky descent for a tractor down a heavily wooded slope and my Dad and his brothers would use the mules to grow a small portion of 'ear' corn, a garden and gather material to burn a plant bed for the tobacco.
I can remember myself, my two cousins and my Dad and his brothers following GrandDad, two mules and a wagon while picking the ears of corn and tossing them into the wagon. It was fun at first for we youngsters but that soon wore off, lol.
One of my Great Uncles kept ear corn in a crib and you could almost always catch sight of a big fat black snake patrolling the crib for rodents. I still have a corn sheller in a shed. We never cut the entire plant but I knew 'old timers' who did. Many farms in that time period had their own hammer mills that could grind up ears, cobs, plants and all.

 

Most people today take farmers and agriculture for granted.

Interesting 4 minute video on how the development of agriculture by humans led to modern civilization:

"It's the difference between there being only a few millions of humans on the planet, and a few billions of humans on the planet".

Agriculture enabled humans to settle-down in one place, instead of constantly roaming over the countryside looking for something to eat.

When humans started settling down and farming the land, villages and eventually cities started to develop. Also since it no longer required every person to be out hunting for food, it allowed many to turn to make their living by doing crafts and skills.

Farming required organization. You needed to have certain people in charge, to make sure that crops were planted and harvested when needed. That animals were being properly taken care of. Clearing new land to plant, and managing irrigation. So that led to recognized leaders with authority, and governments and countries and Kings and Empires.

It also led to wars. If you had good farmland, you inevitably had others who would covet it.

And when humans started growing crops like grain, they noticed that some plants had better characteristics than others. These were then selected for planting, and this "selection" made for better and more productive grains. Here's a short video that illustrates how this all came about:

Most of the food crops (and food animals) that we have today, wouldn't exist unless the result of centuries of cultivation and selection by our ancestors.

 

Love this thread, for sure many people have zero idea how their Big Mac was made, really!
There is a YouTube channel, Working Horses with Jim. He farms in northern New York (State) with horses, and renovates old equipment with help of his Amish neighbors. He cuts hay with a horse-drawn device, fascinating. And he logs with horses. Of course he also has chain saws, trucks and a small excavator. But his skills with horses, knowing how to fix stuff, and work ethic are exactly the opposite of 95% of other men.

https://youtube.com/@WorkingHorsesWithJim?si=-su3VVmVIc0vaAuI

 

People have cultivated crops since the very beginning:

Gen 4:2
Later she gave birth to his brother and named him Abel. When they grew up, Abel became a shepherd, while Cain cultivated the ground.

 

with not many of us having equipment to harvest grains like wheat/barley, my mind has sort of been "brain storming" a way for smaller plot growers to harvest just the grain and leave the straw in the plot,, thinking of something like a berry picker

Amazon.com : Yardwe Berry Pickers and Rakes Blueberry Picker with Comb and Handle Fruit Pick Tool for Picking Berries Blueberries Cranberries Huckleberries Lingonberries Currants : Patio, Lawn & Garden

might be able to just pick the heads like it does berries??? and it would work with less bending compared to harvesting with a sickle

 

with not many of us having equipment to harvest grains like wheat/barley, my mind has sort of been "brain storming" a way for smaller plot growers to harvest just the grain and leave the straw in the plot,, thinking of something like a berry picker

Amazon.com : Yardwe Berry Pickers and Rakes Blueberry Picker with Comb and Handle Fruit Pick Tool for Picking Berries Blueberries Cranberries Huckleberries Lingonberries Currants : Patio, Lawn & Garden

might be able to just pick the heads like it does berries??? and it would work with less bending compared to harvesting with a sickle

While DS harvests with a sickle I just use a pair of scissors. We've even just pulled plants whole to hang for threshing when the pace of harvest has slowed. I've used a berry picker for berries and I am not sure it'd easily work on grains since berries are "easy release" from the plant whereas for the most part grain spikes aren't.

 

Last year my wheat cover crop headed.

I didn't want to waste the berries, albeit premature, so hubby made me a grabber,

and I cut it all down with Fiskars.

The chickens didn't mind a bit...