A Little Less Ambitious

As self-sufficiency expert John Seymour wrote, “You do not need five acres and a degree in horticulture to become self-sufficient ... self-sufficiency is about taking control and becoming an effective producer of whatever your resources allow.”

Many (or even most) writing about self-sufficiency make the assumption that all of us who want to be self-sufficient want to do so primarily because of environmental concerns, global environmental concerns, like sustainability of food production, reduction of pollution, and so forth.

Our thinking is a little less ambitious. We do want the best possible environment in and around our home to allow each member of our family to thrive, both physically and spiritually. We have found in the process of improving our immediate environment by avoiding unnecessary chemicals--cleansers, herbicides, pesticides, fertilizers, preservatives, and sedatives--that traditional ways (natural, homemade) are most often less expensive than purchasing the commercial, chemical products.

In other words, we’re not becoming more self-sufficient to save the planet, we are becoming more self-sufficient to save ourselves. We trust ourselves to take care of us, not the government--local, state, federal, or global. We have found that being self-sufficient, while in the short run is more costly in terms of time and labor (and sometimes money) than relying on others, in the long run is less so. Growing our own food veggies and fruits for the cost of some seeds and a little water is cheaper and cleaner than buying our food at the grocery store. That’s a short term savings. In the long term, we expect to save much more in terms of health and well-being in the future. Those are long term savings.

"Sustainable" for us means that very little, if any, input is required to keep a system going after the initial investment. For example, saving seeds from open pollinated vegetable varieties means that we don't have to purchase seeds or plants each year. Or, keeping a rooster will provide chicks for us whenever we need replacement layers, or meat birds.

The investment we make now in terms of time and money has an incalculable return on investment in the near and distant future, both for ourselves and future generations. For those that feel the planet is in need of saving: the solution is not in buying carbon credits, or driving an electric car, or eating lots of tofu. Just do what you can for your immediate environment. If everyone did the same, the global environment would improve substantially. Start by growing something that you like to eat--tomatoes? peppers? salad greens? Add a couple of chickens to your yard and they will eat your table scraps and bugs in your yard, and give you eggs to eat and manure to put on your garden. Less packaging goes to the landfill, less diesel for food transport is burned, and you will be producing a good bit of your own food.