30 years ago this garden was the only thing that helped my family and millions other people survive when USSR crashed. 600 square meters planted mostly with potatoes provide enough food for family to survive winter and next summer and even sell something. And it's not that hard work, because people usually had their main work for some tiny money and maintained garden before and after work.

I think that everyone should own some land to feed himself in the event of economy fallout.

That's how I read it. Farming doesn't have to mean planting thousands of acres of soybeans and corn and hundreds of head of cattle.

A large garden, some chickens, and perhaps a few goats are more than enough to keep a hobbyist tinkering all day, and is still what I'd call 'farming', though YMMV.

Yep, it's insanely easy and cheap to sustain a family if you have land, a bit of time and two brain cells, but it's insanely hard and expensive to run a successful modern large scale farm

> In the U.S., a high proportion of farms might be classed as hobby farms. In 2007, over 40% of farms reported less than $2500 in income and over 10% of farms had less than 10 acres (4.0 hectares) of land

Hmm, why?

Because there's huge benefits to having a Schedule F on your federal tax return.

You also can get exemptions on your property taxes in many states for the land under agriculture.

You could end up:

  - living off the land

  - paying low taxes on your homestead
    (house + 1 acre)

  - paying almost no taxes on your ag
    land (all but 1 acre)

  - stretching your savings for many
    more years than you'd have any
    right to otherwise

Aka what vets call "Noah's Ark farms"

Because they have two of every animal, but an uneconomically small herd.