[ATE] Farming example

[(E)]

Main street
An example of ATE farming in a hostile climate.

Assumptions
- climate conditions make the local environment barely capable of supporting life.
- late TL 8 early TL 9 start.
- initial resources where a small farming town. Including a rural supply store, local railway line, maybe a dozen small stores, a landfill and a small supermarket.

Notes
- well off community by ATE standards
- tried to make the crops/animals modular so they can be altered as desired to suit the game.
- a similar system could be set up in a high rise building, a new water source would be required though.

Geography
- local river
- town was a crossroads plus service street layout
- 2 or three commercial buildings that are more than 2 stories tall.

Description
Surrounded by a high wall constructed from railway iron posts and salvaged metal there are two towers built from a grain silo and a power pylon at each end of this well fortified farming community.

Upon entering through a short tunnel with heavy doors at each end you come out into an open space, your first impression is glass, lots of glass. The next thing you notice is pipes of all sizes going on all over the place.

Inputs
- water
- sun light
- wood
- lime stone
- Sulfur (presumably from car batteries)
- Salt and refrigeration technology

Water
- Spring, the town's spring is a reliable but small source of water. It is piped to a small artificial Wetland of about 90 square feet. That acts as an additional filter and an indicator of the water's quality.
- River, the river is the most bountiful of the town's water sources. It is also the most polluted. The exact composition of the pollution varies due to events further up the catchment so the purification is time consuming. The residents of main street use a combination of bacterial filtration to remove heavy metals (bacteria sourced from manure slurry), a limestone gravel filter to reduce the acidity and solar powered steam distillation using a parabola lined with broken mirrors.
- Bore, the town has a bore that requires a large amount of power to operate. The water as a result of rain acidity has become super saturated with iron. This is filtered by showering the water onto a sand filter and then passing it through a second activated charcoal filter.
- Rain, the rain fortunately is only slightly acid so it is run over limestone gravel to neutralize the carbonic acid, the CO2 given off by this reaction is saved to cool the radiation detector. The radiation detector is used when there is a westerly blowing.

Crops, most seed was salvaged from the scrap bin behind the supermarket or from one old ladies garden.
- potatoes
- Capsicum
- Tomatoes
- Carrots
- Beans
- Shallots
- Basil
- Cauliflower
These crops are grown in tubs behind windows in the old buildings all along main street's east-west main street. Every roof has either had a green house built on top or the roof has been replaced with glass.

The biggest "field" is in the old single story steel clad warehouse located behind the old farm supply store.

The open field crops are grown on low walled raised beds over a waterproof base. Each plant is protected from the elements by a car window, house window or clear plastic container (for example a water cooler tank)

Other features of Main street
- central composting storage
- methane extraction plant (salvaged from the landfill)
- chemistry plant (only in the most improvised sense)
- alcohol distillery
- small generator powered by a concealed water wheel

Indoor crops
- mushrooms, using the compost and the heat generated from the methane plant. Mushrooms are grown year round in every indoor space that doesn't get enough light for plants to survive. They store well when dried.

Livestock
- Pigs, distributed in as many buildings as possible are the town's pigs. They are descendants of high food conversion efficiency breeds that where farmed near by. They are fed carrots, eggs, mushrooms and any other surplus food.
- Chickens, fed cooked root vegetables, snails, worms.
- Fish, fed worms, snails, pig skin and other miscellaneous protein rich food. Usually housed in salvaged baths
- Snails and slugs, fed green leafy parts of the crops. Farmed in moist rooms on trays.
- worms, fed on compost-able plant material.

The livestock produce
- Pigs; meat, blood, leather, offal, bones, fat, manure, gelatin, tendons.
- Chickens; meat, eggs, feathers, offal blood.
- Fish; meat, fertiser, manure, bones.
- Snails; protein, manure
- worms; protein, worm cast.

Regular doses of lime would be required to manage the PH of the manure.

Of the three main fertilizer elements, phosphorus and potassium would be easy to recover from the wastes and the manure system produces lots of nitrates

A lot of the methane would be used to provide heat for chemical processes and cooking food.

Portable food
- dried; mushrooms, fish, beans.
- Shallots, potatoes
- pickled; pork, eggs, capsicum.
- with enough surplus energy and water canning possible.
- Dried sausage treated with nitrates.

Other produce
- capsaicin and gunpowder weapons.
- ether, not long term sustainable
- gun cotton
- methane
- grouting (essential with all the glass to maintain)

Skills within community
- Chemistry TL6/7
- Animal Handling
- Engineering
- Farming
- Gardening (?)
- Vet (maybe)
- Cooking

Should fit a book of Eli or mad max setting, work in progress.
Anyone want more crunch?
Further examples?
- in the dark
- very small space
- depopulated world
- "homestead"
- nomads

edit
Adding crunch, back of an envelope level of accuracy
- Assuming a late TL8 high yield potato variety with very few pests surviving, 50% of the space devoted to potatoes, the 300 by 200 yard walled off area produces two crops of maybe 80 tonnes each.
- Potatoes and beans are technically the same rotation when dealing with fungal challenges. So the growing medium is highly managed to maintain fertility and health.
- Beans are the next most common crop with an annual production of 8 tonnes, Individual bean plants are planted in almost every available space.
- The rest of the crops yield another 2 tonnes in total.
- The worms and Snails turn the approximately 100 tonnes of green matter plus scraps (including winter weeds) into 10 tonnes of protein and fat rich "slow meat" for chickens, fish and pigs.
- Mushroom production is in the area of 40 tonnes a year
- 120 pigs are reared for food per year, this consumes most of the mushrooms and 75 tonnes of potatoes, producing 6 tonnes of pork, (unsure of the estrus for pigs, presuming two litters a year)
- Overall the production is in the area of 100 tonnes of reasonably varied food per year. More than enough to support the population of about 100 people. Incredibly labor intensive.
- there is sufficient give in the system for Main Street to employ (feed) about 5 professional scavengers/salvagers/adventurers