The Role of Home Gardens in Feeding the World and Sequestering Carbon

By Michael Pilarski
Founder and Director of Friends of the Trees Society
January 1, 2009
13,700 word paper.

This article explores the role of home gardens in world food production. The thesis of the article is that home gardens have the potential to become the dominant food supply for humanity. A case is made that home gardens could grow 50% of humanity’s food supply on less then 10% of the world’s arable farmland. Home gardens are one of the most reliable, efficient and democratic ways of producing food ever invented. Agriculture has repeatedly degraded its natural resource base and collapsed many societies in the past. Modern, industrial agriculture is not suited to these changing times and is liable to increasing breakdown within the next decade.

Who is this article written for? It is written for gardeners, would-be gardeners, garden educators, hunger activists and people interested in local food security. Organic gardeners will be familiar with much of the material. Permaculturists already know most of the techniques and principles outlined here. Most of it is just good, practical common-sense gardening that gardeners everywhere can relate to.

PART I looks at home-gardens’ role in feeding people as compared to agriculture and hunter-gathering.

PART II introduces tools, techniques and strategies to maximize home-garden production, while being ecologically-sound, cost- and labor-effective, and with minimal reliance on outside inputs and fossil-fuel.

This is a permaculture approach to gardening.

See the complete article here.

Michael Pilarski is a farmer, educator and author who has devoted his life to studying and teaching how people can live sustainably on this Earth. He has extensive experience in organic farming, seed collecting, wildcrafting medicinal herbs, plant propagation, horticulture, teaching, and international networking. Michael has personally worked with over 1,000 species of plants. He founded Friends of the Trees Society in 1978 and has authored many books on forestry, agriculture, agroforestry and ethnobotany. Michael has been involved in the permaculture movement since 1981 as a writer, teacher and networker. He has taught over 20 full Permaculture Design Courses in the USA and abroad.