Farming in difficult environments AtE and other worlds

[(E)]

Originally Posted by tshiggins

About the only "utility" crop I'd look at is hemp. That's just too useful, for all sorts of purposes.

It's on the list, but hemp does have a high water cost for processing, but that's balanced somewhat by its use as a "landfarming" crop.

[Edit] as with most things, I really need to research a lot of specifics before committing one way or the other.

[(E)]

Originally Posted by tshiggins

I'd recommend you leave off trade, and don't spend much time on cash crops, just yet. Stick to subsistence, for your first effort. Also, probably take a bye on exotic husbandry; I 'd focus on traditional livestock -- yer basic chickens, pigs, sheep and goats; beef cattle, dairy cows, and oxen breeds; donkeys, mules, draft horses and riding horses.

About the only "utility" crops I'd look at are hemp and flax. They're just too useful, for all sorts of purposes. Cotton and tobacco strip the soil, but flax seems okay.

eiha.org/media/2014/10/Ecological-benefits-of-hemp-and-flax-cultivation-and-products-2011.pdf

Looking at the PDF I came across my "favourite" issue that comes up when doing the research. What measurement are they using?
For example one of the lines in a table in that pdf lists wheat as being better than potatoes when it comes to environmental impact of water use.
Go to another source of information that focuses on potatoes and you get this which has a handy graph telling you potatoes are the best users of water.

Then it's time to figure out how to compare apples and oranges in that specific case.

I work off the generalization that all the information available
Is a generalization and therefore frequently wrong. ;)

[Edit]
The input is greatly appreciated.

[adm]

I would recommend that you include some "small" protein animals, rabbits, cavy/guinea pigs, heck even rats, etc. For small holdings these and potatoes squash, and similar "garden" crops can be quite useful.

[tshiggins]

Originally Posted by (E)

Looking at the PDF I came across my "favourite" issue that comes up when doing the research. What measurement are they using?

Well, I checked out the Nova Institute, and it seems to be an EU-based think-tank organization. I'd say the .pdf uses metric units.

Originally Posted by (E)

For example one of the lines in a table in that pdf lists wheat as being better than potatoes when it comes to environmental impact of water use.
Go to another source of information that focuses on potatoes and you get this which has a handy graph telling you potatoes are the best users of water.

Awesome. :p

At that point, I guess the only choice is to consult several other sources, and see if one of them shows the work -- what the data is, where it came from, and the methodology used to collect it.

Originally Posted by (E)

Then it's time to figure out how to compare apples and oranges in that specific case.

I work off the generalization that all the information available
Is a generalization and therefore frequently wrong. ;)

[Edit]
The input is greatly appreciated.

You're quite welcome. I first really got interested in the topic of Medieval farming back in high school, when I wanted to create an AD&D campaign that had more than just dungeon-delving.

I wanted to create a trade system, and that made me look at commodities for trade, and that drew me toward the concept of surpluses of all sorts -- including agricultural surpluses.

So far, Harn does the best job of modeling two-field agriculture with some supernatural assistance, but even there they make some decisions that have less to do with reality and more to do with making the game easier.

For instance, Harn Manor assumes that it takes two bushels of grain to sow an acre, and (with the help of a priest or priestess of the local fertility goddess), the yield is always 5:1 (10 bushels), multiplied by soil quality (1.0 is dead average, of course).

You also make rolls for disasters of all sorts -- including bad weather.

Overall, it actually works quite well, if you want to play a low-powered campaign centered around a knight's fief.

https://www.rpgnow.com/product/63126/HarnManor

http://theharniac.net/farmer/almanac.htm

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by adm

I would recommend that you include some "small" protein animals, rabbits, cavy/guinea pigs, heck even rats, etc. For small holdings these and potatoes squash, and similar "garden" crops can be quite useful.

Insect farming is probably even better suited to AtE kind of settings. Crickets are very nutritionally dense and probably resistant to the local apocalyptic dangers floating around.

[(E)]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Insect farming is probably even better suited to AtE kind of settings. Crickets are very nutritionally dense and probably resistant to the local apocalyptic dangers floating around.

Do you want the crickets listed by feed efficiency or production per hectare. :p
(2:1/6:1 and 100+ tons to the hectare respectively (very RAW data, add several salt grains))
They were mentioned in a recent national geographic article on the future of farming as well.

[(E)]

Originally Posted by tshiggins

(SNIP)
I wanted to create a trade system, and that made me look at commodities for trade, and that drew me toward the concept of surpluses of all sorts -- including agricultural surpluses.

Thinking about it I did one bit of modeling a little while ago that provided a basis for something similar. I took the map of a kingdom, overlayed a soil map showing two types of soil (random squiggly lines work as well) and noted that the north is colder than the south.
As there was only a handful of crops available it was very easy to say what grew best where. It also turned up the fact that iron was hard to find in most areas but large abundances existed in several locations.
Taken together it seemed to provide a basis for what gets moved for trade.

[tshiggins]

Originally Posted by (E)

Thinking about it I did one bit of modeling a little while ago that provided a basis for something similar. I took the map of a kingdom, overlayed a soil map showing two types of soil (random squiggly lines work as well) and noted that the north is colder than the south.
As there was only a handful of crops available it was very easy to say what grew best where. It also turned up the fact that iron was hard to find in most areas but large abundances existed in several locations.
Taken together it seemed to provide a basis for what gets moved for trade.

That's about as sophisticated as most computer strategy games ever get. :)

[SteamBub]

I would think a more general overview of farming would be better as it can range form fantasy to AtE to sci-fi. Breaking it down to a few parts like soils (brimstone from hell to rust sands from mars), environments (arcologies, zero-g, cold/hot deserts, hellscapes, to underground), external factors (weather, seasons, radiation, to aspect mana), internal factors (methods of agriculture[corp rotation to aeroponics], fertilization, tools, to spells), labor (animals, slaves, workers, robots, to golems and skeletons), corps/yields (food, industrial, drugs, and medical) and animals (insects, small, large, and larger). If it's broken down well, you could just add historical/cultural context or fantastical/scientific speculation to each point without having a huge history overview. For GM workload, costs and labor to start a farm, upkeep costs for the farm, and modifiers and rolling for yields with sell costs.

[Minuteman37]

Originally Posted by SteamBub

I would think a more general overview of farming would be better as it can range form fantasy to AtE to sci-fi. Breaking it down to a few parts like soils (brimstone from hell to rust sands from mars), environments (arcologies, zero-g, cold/hot deserts, hellscapes, to underground), external factors (weather, seasons, radiation, to aspect mana), internal factors (methods of agriculture[corp rotation to aeroponics], fertilization, tools, to spells), labor (animals, slaves, workers, robots, to golems and skeletons), corps/yields (food, industrial, drugs, and medical) and animals (insects, small, large, and larger). If it's broken down well, you could just add historical/cultural context or fantastical/scientific speculation to each point without having a huge history overview. For GM workload, costs and labor to start a farm, upkeep costs for the farm, and modifiers and rolling for yields with sell costs.

I'm going to have to disagree with that. The point of book like this is that I as a GM don't need to go off and do all the research myself. The broader the supplement gets the more I'll need to filter out for what is relevant to my game and lets be honest, 99% of games where this kind of materal is relevant will be AtE or gritty low fantasy.

It doesn't make a whole lot of sense for this supplement to be a generic broad strokes overview.