The myth of self-sufficiency

Jill Severn

A lot of people are scared right now — scared about the growing list of budget cuts, mass firing and banned words in federal agencies, scared about the impacts of a trade-and-tariff war, scared about the future of Ukraine, and scared about the future of immigrants.   

Then there’s the price of eggs, worries about the fragility of our food supply in a time of climate change and the possible deportation of the immigrants who comprise about 40 percent of our agricultural workforce. 

Someone in my neighborhood sent around a flyer calling for the creation of a mutual support network to prepare for the electrical grid to go down, and for the need to purify our own water. She also calls for us to learn how to grow “staple crops like wheat and lentils in our yards.” 

Yikes. This is a pandemic of fear. 

But growing our own wheat won’t help us escape the deep disruption in American civic life or its impact on the rest of the world.   

A friend of mine in Seattle tried this path to self-sufficiency a few years back. Her family was proud of their crop of wheat until they discovered that the space in their yard produced enough wheat flour to make one pizza crust. 

We can all be a little bit more self-sufficient by growing our own vegetables, but not a lot. Auntie Google says it takes about 5 acres for a family of four to be food self-sufficient, and that’s only if the land is fertile, in the right climate zone, and with a reliable supply of water. 

But food self-sufficiency is a small fraction of what we need. We all need housing, clothing, forks and knives, and garden hoses, for example. Most of us believe we need cars, paved roads, and national parks with regular trail maintenance, too. 

But right now, we also need to face the facts of a looming constitutional crisis. We need courage, equanimity, and good citizenship. 

We are citizens of the most powerful democracy on earth, which right now is a heavy burden. We have to figure out how to fulfill the obligations that comes with this power. 

In a past life, when I was a reporter covering the United Nations, an Algerian ambassador told me he thought everyone on earth should get to vote in American elections because people in countries all over the world are as profoundly affected by the American government as American citizens are. These effects range from receiving food aid that prevents starvation to military invasion. 

But let’s get back to gardening. We need it now more than ever — not to make us self-sufficient, but to preserve our sanity. 

 Our gardens are the ultimate safe space where we can soothe our troubled minds with the smell of damp soil, the sight of sprouting seeds, and the reliable return of a fertile, joyous spring.

When the human sphere sizzles with anxiety, the natural world can still be counted on to comfort us. A shovel in the soil and the soundtrack of birdsong is balm for the soul. 

Becoming a bit more self-sufficient is a good idea. Every vegetable we grow is fresher, tastier and better for us and the planet. It’s also a good idea to promote more local farming, which can mitigate our reliance on our fragile global food system. 

But the essential reality is that we are all in this time of trouble together, and we have to find our way out of it together.  

Gardening is not an escape from our civic responsibility or a path to shelter from the storm. But hours in the garden are the nourishment we need to take reason, calm, kindness and clear thinking into the world outside our garden gates. 

Jill Severn writes from her home in Olympia, where she grows vegetables, flowers, and a small flock of chickens. She loves conversation among gardeners. Start one by emailing her at  jill@theJOLTnews.com