The Self-Sufficient Garden Blog
The Garden Food System and Diffusion of Innovation Part I
By now you know—if you’ve been following my blogs—that I intend to build up a GFS (Garden Food System) as a viable alternative to the IFS (Industrial Food System). But just how would that rather ambitious goal play out? Perhaps the best way to describe it is in terms...
The Garden Food System and Diffusion of Innovation Part II
Rate of adoption All successful innovations go through an adoption curve in which the new technology or idea reaches a critical mass, at which point it becomes self-sustaining. But not all innovations are successful. For instance, many have predicted that some form of...
Material Food Flow in 2023
The (Now Even Greater) Field-to-Fork Dropoff I was really happy to discover the material food flow chart (below) published by the Center for Sustainable Systems at the University of Michigan. It’s been so useful in my blogs e.g, The Evidence and webinar....
The Garden Food System – I
Basic Structure Contrary to popular belief, the importance of home gardens is not confined to small scale, individual use. I believe I’ve now clearly documented that they can provide a substantial proportion of a country’s food and can do so far more efficiently than...
The Garden Food System – II
Why The Garden and Industrial Food Systems Are So Different First, just to map out some context, how are the two systems alike? Well to begin with, as their titles denote, they are both systems. A system is a group of interacting parts that work together as a whole....
The Garden Food System – III
Current IFS System Fixes Fall Short of an Optimal Solution How do we assess the viability of food system fixes? First, let’s consider what constitutes an optimal “system fix.” One of the most comprehensive and thoughtful descriptions of what a truly sustainable farm-...
The Garden Food System – IV
How Will an Expanded GFS Impact the IFS? Suppose, just suppose, that at some point home gardens began to supply, say, 20% of all our food. How would that affect the industrial food system, given that we’re already on the way with 41% of all households currently having...
False Narratives of Food Production
Much of the discourse around the industrial food system—and how to make it more sustainable—hinges on the six untrue but largely unquestioned narratives discussed here. Together, they present a decidedly distorted picture about how the U.S. and the world produces and...
Is the Ukraine-Russia War Wreaking Havok on the Global Food System?
The hand-wringing was oh, so predictable. In March (2022), ominous headlines began to warn of impending doom wrought by the loss of grains, sunflower oil, and fertilizer exports from Russia and Ukraine: War threatens to cause a global food crisis – NY Times War takes...