[AtE] [Low Tech] Farming in AtE

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by mlangsdorf

The question remains, if you're using formerly TL8 organic/sustainable/heirloom seeds but only have access to TL4 infrastructure (so no mechanical reapers or sowers, probably no drip irrigation, certainly no modern pesticides and nitrogen fertilizers), what kind of yields do you get?

Infrastructure (probably) trumps stock. In other words: Using TL 4 methods? Reap TL 4 quantities.

Now, that doesn't mean a GM can't have a few TL 8+ super plants that improves or alters this base assumption, but that should be a plot point or goal.

[Crakkerjakk]

Originally Posted by mlangsdorf

DanHoward, for better or worse, ATE is a) set several generations after the end and b) be assumes the production of ethanol and biodiesel for fuel.

So we can assume small villages at TL4 that are planting enough crops to sustain themselves and possibly make limited amounts of ethanol for medical use, and larger towns/peaceful village trade networks that are at TL5.

The question remains, if you're using formerly TL8 organic/sustainable/heirloom seeds but only have access to TL4 infrastructure (so no mechanical reapers or sowers, probably no drip irrigation, certainly no modern pesticides and nitrogen fertilizers), what kind of yields do you get?

I've seen a couple urban permaculture farms that get about 6,000 lbs of varied vegetables out of 1/10 an acre or so. That's intensive planting, and they may use more organic fertilizer than they can produce themselves locally, but it's probably a good ballpark for what's possible.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NCmTJkZy0rM

[Polydamas]

The guys with a clue about low-tech agriculture who stepped in to help research the 1632 books seemed to think that things like the 19th century introduction of agricultural fairs, lecture circuits for experts on farming, etc. were a big deal. In low-tech conditions, often if you bred a higher-yield breed of hog, or a strain of wheat which could tolerate drought better, you kept it for yourself and never found out that there was someone three towns over who was working in the same area and had made progress in areas you were struggling with. Just publicizing the idea that it was possible to do better, and getting farmers to show off their best and explain how they did it to people who lived further away than the next village, was important.

Some of the results of these advances will remain after the end, but in the wasteland the networks which create and sustain them are likely as dead as Toronto.

Some of the basic strains of grain on the Canadian prairies were first developed in the 19th century.

[Polydamas]

Zomia and "James Scott Art of Not Being Governed" might be keywords worth mining. Scott discusses strategies which some people worried about armies invading and confiscating or burning their crops and buildings have adopted, such as focusing on tubers rather than grains. Often "big ideas" which are too ambitious and breezy to get academic traction are excellent fodder for games.

[mlangsdorf]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

Infrastructure (probably) trumps stock. In other words: Using TL 4 methods? Reap TL 4 quantities.

Now, that doesn't mean a GM can't have a few TL 8+ super plants that improves or alters this base assumption, but that should be a plot point or goal.

So a quick search showed that modern organic farming gets better than 50% to 80% of conventional yields. I don't know much of that is affected by mechanical reaping/sowing, but my intuition is that mechanical aids primarily reduce the amount of labor needed to farm and only partially increase yield by getting all the crop reaped before it spoils.

Crakkerjakk's link works out to 60000 lbs of food per acre per year for TL8 intensive organic, and even if they can't scale up that past a 1/10th acre plot or maintain that without a full TL8 infrastructure, 6000 lbs / acre / year is 350% of what At Play in the Fields gives for a TL4 mixed farm.

[Crakkerjakk]

Note that the folks in the video don't do any grains or corn. Both are space intensive and don't give you a whole lot of weight per area, compared to intensive veggie farming.

That said, here are some numbers for various grian yields at the individual scale:

Barley 25-65 lbs/1000sqft
Buckwheat 33 lbs/1000sqft
Corn 72-96 ears/1000sqft
Millet 55 lbs/1000sqft
Oats 50 lbs/1000sqft
Rice 60-80 lbs/1000sqft
Rye 40-45 lbs/1000sqft
Triticale 35 lbs/1000sqft
Wheat 40 lbs/1000sqft

Source: The Backyard Homestead, by Madigan.

Plant the rest of a 1/2 acre (17.5k sqft, one you plant 1/10 acre with veggies) with grains, another half acre for some goats that you can both milk and harvest for hair, plus some chickens, rabbits, guinea pigs, mixed in and you can put out a LOT of calories (and useful stuff like feathers, wool, etc) out of an acre. You need a bit more space once you start to rotate crops, but still.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

Now, that doesn't mean a GM can't have a few TL 8+ super plants that improves or alters this base assumption, but that should be a plot point or goal.

If someone engineered a true-breeding "super crop" that was readily usable by poor third-world farmers, that would be extremely useful to AtE communities. There can be multiple types of these - crops that give ridiculous yields, crops that produce even in adverse conditions, and crops that supply essential vitamins and nutrients (like golden rice) come to mind. Rice may be the ideal crop to modify in this manner, but others are certainly possible. Quests to acquire seeds from such "super crops" would be highly appropriate, and would likely prove quite lucrative to the characters.

[adm]

Everyone keeps referring to ethanol, note that methanol does not require food quality source material, and would work fine for none ingestion uses like fuel.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by adm

Everyone keeps referring to ethanol, note that methanol does not require food quality source material, and would work fine for none ingestion uses like fuel.

Methanol is easy to make at high TL's, but Low Tech notes that production of it before TL 5 "would be a long and difficult undertaking" - you have to produce it very slowly by destructive distillation of wood in an oxygen-free environment. That said, if you can reliably produce it, methanol has lower energy density and higher toxicity (and can be absorbed from vapors or through the skin) than ethanol. Use the guidelines from AtE1, but the vehicle's range is multiplied by 1/2 instead of 3/4, and an Critical Failure on a maintenance-related roll means the character gets dosed with methanol. Not certain what the penalty on the HT roll would be, but Failure would mean toxic damage and nausea, and Failure by 4+ or Critical Failure would also cause permanent Blindness.

[adm]

It was my understanding that methanol could produced, carefully, in a still similar to a moonshiners still, if you did not need modern manufacturing purity levels.

For limited fuel production, and sterilization of surfaces for medical uses, I thought it would work.