advice sought on buying a plot to farm self-sufficiently & live on

In my cousin's experience, you get the eggs until the fox gets the meat. :-(

Reply to
OG
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In article , Tim Watts writes

You can't keep chickens just anywhere. In my land registration thingy it says no chickens or words to that effect.

Janet

Reply to
Janet Tweedy

That sounds like a covenant restriction rather than the general case. I've got one that says "no caravans", but in general people can keep a caravan.

Reply to
Tim Watts

until you buy the factory made energy intensive shotgun, or chicken wire.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

Define self sufficiency? Self sufficiency must be farming & must be a commercial business with ongoing profit & loss because you need to average out to achieve "evens" - the whole point of "The Good Life" :-)

Define what the objective really is. I suspect a B&B in France is likely to be more viable as a "self- sufficient lifestyle" (try farming with arthritis). Alternatively Bulgaria probably offers very low overheads for living - no restrictions on foreign property ownership unlike India, and I suspect taxation is very low.

If this is "retire on 300k" that is not a problem in many countries - your problem will be maximising return (income) on the 300k whilst minimising risk, and that will necessitate a very global multi-asset perspective to counter real world inflation. A bank account can be had yielding 3% or more, but inflation is somewhat above that level and spending all the income leaves no capital appreciation to maintain income against inflation.

Think through very carefully, mistakes with capital can be hard to reverse - life compounds financial liability.

Reply to
js.b1

I had one that said no chickens, pigs or travelling fairs and I was not allowed to make it into a lunatic asylum, but they were all restrictive covenants on the land, not general restrictions.

Colin Bignell

Reply to
Nightjar

David WE Roberts wrote: ...

I assumed the no livestock bit implied vegan. Not sure what their view on bees is though.

Colin Bignell

Reply to
Nightjar

d of around 2-3 acres with a

Interesting - thanks for this. Bigger than I need - both the house and the land area. Very nice looking, at that price. Sorry you lost out! Did you view it? What kind of state was the house in?

Best,

Michael

Reply to
hanrahan398

All very good points, and well made. But you are asking the OP to let his head rule his heart, when his idea of 'self sufficiency' more closely resembles his heart ruling his head.

I'm not sure that it is possible to find a compromise between these two diametrically opposite approaches.

Reply to
Bruce

Perhaps the OP and/or his loved ones are vegetarian or vegan? He seemed very firm in his first posting about no livestock.

Being a vegan isn't easy. I married someone strictly vegetarian who is keen to go vegan, so I know. But many people seem to achieve a dairy-free diet quite successfully. I couldn't do it, and it seems as though you probably couldn't either, but the fact is that many do.

It really isn't up to us to judge what other people do or don't eat. I don't like being put under pressure *not* to eat certain foods, and I know that others don't like being pressured by society into eating things that they don't believe people should eat.

Reply to
Bruce

I wasn't judging him, just questioning the practicalities. TNP said soya beans - I don't honestly know if that's enough. I thought nuts were par for the course of being a vegan too???

Chickens are usually high of the list of a truely self sufficient lifestyle because: they're fairly easy (apart from keeping foxes off them); they eat lots of kitchen waste; they produce 2 useful products.

Cows OTOH would be a nightmare. When the inevetible happens, having to kill it and process that much meat in one go would be a serious undertaking. If it were me, I'd probably develop a liking for goats or sheeps milk at that point(!)

Reply to
Tim Watts

you should be alright anywhere away from commuters, the Lake district or the coast

How about this:- "

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Reply to
Allthumbs

It's not. Nor are nuts+soya. Veganism is as unnatural as the steak diet so popular with other people, and it's extremely hard to avoid malnutrition. In particular, B12 deficiency is a serious risk, so supplements are needed. See, for example, "Dietary Sources" in:

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Maclaren.

Reply to
nmm1

Three slices of marmite on toast for breakfast each day give a person ample B12.

Michael

Reply to
hanrahan398

well its a novel way to lose half your friends.

However, how are you going to make this Marmite on your self sufficiency plot?

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

Broccoli for one

Reply to
stuart noble

Just eat what you want to eat, Nat! As long as your table manners are OK :-)

But getting sufficient B12 is easy for any vegan.

OK OK, not total or literal self-sufficiency. But probably what John Seymour would have classed as it. No plans to stop buying industrially manufactured toilet paper, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.

Michael

Reply to
hanrahan398

In article , "Nightjar "@?.?.invalid> writes

Oh dear so now URG meets there then? :)

Reply to
Janet Tweedy

It's also a frequently propagated myth - and often propaganda. According to the manufacturers, that is 1.8 micrograms a day:

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quote an old, now superseded, valud of the RDA. A more modern figure is 2.4+:

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a significant but small (1%?) people have problems absorbing it, and so need more. An ample quantity would be in the range 6-10 micrograms - that's a tablespoonful of Marmite!

Regards, Nick Maclaren.

Reply to
nmm1

blimey. What's wrong with vegetable oil and slaked lime soap, and a bit of straw?

Weave your underwear out of nettle stalks suitably stripped.

Nah. My main point is that no one is in this country is remotely able to be self sufficient, and even pre-industrial farming, is not self sufficient.

The only self sufficient people we have had here are hunter-gatherers, and they mainly hunted furry things. Not vegetables.

The moment you even do slash and burn agriculture, you introduce specialisation. A metal worker trades metals for food etc etc.

This is the real myth busting behind all ecological and green eco bollox. If you want a completely sustainable egalitarian society, this island can do it, in terms of hunter gathering, at a population of about

100,000.

It can be inegalitarian, but relatively sustainable, with a feudal system up to about 2 million.

For the rest, there is fossil or nuclear energy.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

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