Theme: self-sufficiency

[Iaoranamoana]

Hello everyone !

Already, we hope that we were not mistaken forforums :/

In any case, we are 4 students in the second year of sociology and we are currently working on a file relating to self-sufficiency. Self-sufficiency, at the level of an individual, generally includes the maintenance of a vegetable garden (thus providing fruit and vegetables for the family, eliminating or reducing the visits to the supermarket) and / or energy constructions tending towards a goal of autonomy of the home (like the wind turbine, the water mill ect ...).
We would like to offer you a little survey to make more concrete the information that we have processed, not knowing around us self-sufficient homes.

Hoping that this short questionnaire will be as clear as possible, otherwise don't hesitate to raise points that you consider important or ask us for clarifications.

Thank you in advance !

Question 1: Are you a woman or a man? Woman man

Question 2: Age range: 18 - 30, 30 - 50, 50 and over

Question 3: What is your living environment: Large city - medium or small city - village near a built-up area - isolated village - others

Question 4: Do you know the concept of self-sufficiency? Yes - superficially - no

Question 5: In what area do you qualify as self-sufficient? Food - energy - both - other

Question 6: What is your first motivation? Economic - ideological - playful - Worry (ex: the disappearance of resources) - Distrust towards industrialization (ex: ogms) - other (in this case, specify)

Question 7: Do you keep buying vegetables in a supermarket? Yes - less often - no

Question 8: Do you consider yourself an environmentalist? Yes No

Question 9: Are you seeing improvements in your daily life? Yes No

Question 10: On the contrary, are you facing disadvantages? Yes No

Question 11: Is it easier to be self-sufficient or to consume? Self-sufficiency - consumption - it goes

Question 12: Was your place of residence an obstacle? Yes No

Question 13: Have you saved money? Yes - little savings - no

Question 14: Do you feel more free? Yes - a little - no

[Aumicron]

Hi students,

Personally, I don't really like the term self-sufficiency. If you are looking for people who are self-sufficient on this forum, there are some beautiful specimens.

More seriously, your questionnaire is a good base.

I would add 2 questions:

1. Are you saving thanks to self-sufficiency?

2. Do you feel that you are freer?

[Iaoranamoana]

Both questions are very relevant, thank you! I will add them from this step =)

The term self-sufficient is not the one that we like the most too but we must keep the term since it is by this term that the phenomenon is described.

[Christophe]

If you are looking for people who are self-sufficient on this forum, there are some beautiful specimens.

I don't think our newcomer understands what you mean

A nice example how by Oba? That's it?

Self-sufficiency, especially in food, is a sweet dream ... Do not forget that we have gone from 95% of farmers to 5% thanks to the mechanism "animated" by oil ...

And don't forget that mass production often has a lower economic cost ... compared to the number of units obviously produced!

[dirk pitt]

.... And don't forget that mass production often has a lower economic cost ... compared to the number of units obviously produced!

+1; you took it out of my mouth.
self-sufficiency is an economic and energetic abberration in many areas.
the community is often more effective than the individual.
afterwards, it is all a question of size and organization of the community.

[Christophe]

I would say even more Dirk: sexual self-sufficiency leads to the extinction of the community

It was the Friday night 2 ball joke (and more)

[Forhorse]

Anyway I doubt that they find many "self sufficient" to respond to this survey. This is something that is very difficult to achieve.
Until now I have only known one family living in "autarky", it was in my deep Vosges. For having had one of their son as a friend during my schooling, I know that it is something that requires a lot of sacrifice, a lot of work and a lot of space.
And again they were "self-sufficient" for food (including bread, milk and meat) and heating, for the rest they were forced to live like everyone else.

I do not believe that in our time, in France there are many people who live in conditions allowing this food "self-sufficiency".
And in terms of energy, it requires such a financial investment, that apart from winning the lottery it must also be difficult to achieve.

[I Citro]

Anyway I doubt that they find many "self sufficient" to respond to this survey. This is something that is very difficult to achieve.

I even think that in France, this is utopian ...

[minguinhirigue]

Nice question ...

I do not know anyone who has complete self-sufficiency, I think that he will not have much contact with others anyway ...

On the other hand, I know a lot of peasants, or small eco-hamlets with almost complete autonomy for seasonal fruits and vegetables, and advanced energy autonomy (everything except car travel).

Michel Rossel, an anarchitect of the Cévennes is one of those.

Large area of ​​land, vegetable patch, wind pumping, phyto-purification with evaporation, minimum electrical use, photovoltaic resource, diesel group using vegetable oil as backup ...

For transport, it is also vegetable oil, recycled, filtered at 5 microns, but not self-produced. It powers the pantone-mounted diesel engines of the tractor and the small van.

Wood heating with land resources.

I am very far from this kind of practice, but I would like to be able to tend to it, as soon as buying a piece of land is possible, here or elsewhere ... Still a little work.


After, Christopher, Darth Pitt, "self-sufficiency is an economic and energy aberration"... in a limitless world ...

If we think for two minutes about long-term management of resources, the quasi-self-sufficiency of communities for basic needs is ecological and ethical evidence (do not transfer to others its management errors: pollution, overconsumption of water, destruction ecosystem, and so on).

As you say so well dirk pitt, "it's all about the size and organization of the community." The self-sufficient family in France is rare, especially since thinking about ethical and ecological considerations implies deconstructing the myth of the race for progress on which our civilization is based ...
So we haven't finished debating!

Thus, by citing the mechanization of French agriculture to obtain food self-sufficiency, you give a superb counter-example Christophe!

Coming from you it may be wanted.

French agriculture produces almost all of the food consumed on French soil ... if we exclude the crazy quantities that are thrown away ...

This production will reach a peak linked to the overexploitation of certain agricultural areas: increasingly deep plowing, soil engorged with contradictory chemical cocktails, serious parasitoses more and more frequent on large monoculture farms ...

And last but not least, since some operators dream of driving in self-produced vegetable oil (which is far from being stupid, but let's go) ... We started for relatively unprofitable operations: look at the report on energy invested / recovered in mechanized cultivation for biofuels.

Bah yes, autonomy is also not to transmit to our neighbors or to our children empty oil wells, so black gold to cut green gold !?

More seriously, I think that growth must be controlled, not exponential. We must be able to take into account the need for relative autonomy in certain fundamental areas, and do everything to implement it, at the appropriate scale.

[I Citro]

French agriculture produces almost all of the food consumed on French soil ... if we exclude the crazy quantities that are thrown away ...

Really? For most of the cereals produced in France, I believed that their mediocre quality meant them for export, as they could not be consumed by humans. We therefore manufacture with subsidies, inputs and pumping "shit" products intended to feed "shit" animals to force-feed us then ...
So much so that we are forced to import more than 50% of our consumption in "organic" products.