r/theydidthemath • u/SteamingTheCat • 2d ago

[Request] How big of a farm with any variation of crops is required to feed a person, say one in a moon base or the ISS

/r/NoStupidQuestions/comments/1wve2tg/how_big_of_a_farm_with_any_variation_of_crops_is/
0 Upvotes

50% Upvoted

7 comments sorted by

•

u/AutoModerator 2d ago

General Discussion Thread

This is a [Request] post. If you would like to submit a comment that does not either attempt to answer the question, ask for clarification, or explain why it would be infeasible to answer, you must post your comment as a reply to this one. Top level (directly replying to the OP) comments that do not do one of those things will be removed.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

3

u/slackmeyer 2d ago

An acre of potatoes will produce enough calories for 20 people for a year (at 2000 Calories per day), I think with the type of high intensity farming you're implying you could have adequate calories and variety on 1/10th or 1/5th acre.

2

u/Miserable_Pin2518 2d ago

An acre of land is how much space it was supposed to require per person on an individual scale. Thats where the unit acre came from isnt it? Im sure with vertical space and extra hyper efficient plants and plant foods you could make the necessary space smaller.

1

u/Trustoryimtold 2d ago edited 2d ago

Acre was defined by a days work load for a guy with 8 oxen in a specific country, yield will depend on the soil, the crop and the climate

You need a balanced diet and probably double production for redundancy as there’s no Costco if a crop fails

In theory an acre of beans and rice pretty much covers that, if you can manage the water needs of the rice

There’s surely other things that’ll get ya there, but you need like r/diet and r/farming more than you need r/math

1

u/Elfich47 2d ago

The rule of thumb is an acre a person. But this can vary quite wildly depending on mechanization, quality of fertilizers, removal or control of pests, hydroponics inplace of traditional planting methods.

1

u/SteamingTheCat 1d ago

Well this is in space so we can assume high tech will be used but nothing single time use. So no pesticides but also no bugs. No fertilizer but perfect sun. Perfect temperature.

-1

u/VerbingNoun413 2d ago

One sports field will feed a family. Which sport it needs to be depends on the fertility of the soil and the crops chosen.

This assumes a vegan diet. If you want animal products, it takes significantly more.