How big of a greenhouse do you need to feed your family?
World from Scratch is creating a world where everyone can follow their dreams. And one of the ways that happens is by your house automatically growing the food you need. So, that begs the question, how much food does it take to feed a person?
Well, depending on what you are growing, its anywhere between 160 and 22,000 sq. ft. Let’s look at how I got to those numbers!
The average calories a person in the U.S. needs is approximated around 1900, but let’s round up to 2000 to make things easy. With that in mind, how many calories are in some of our common fruits and vegetables? (I specifically targeted ones that I could also find the greenhouse/hydroponic yields for)
Next up, let’s look at the yields you can get from hydroponics from these different plants. Using two different sources, we find that we can do a lot in one acre!
From these measurements, I was able to convert all the pounds/tons into grams. Where 1 ton of food = 907,185 grams. Then you’ve got 43,560 square feet per acre. Multiplying tons into grams and dividing by acre we get yield per square foot. And can then take our 2000 calories per person per day and divide by calories per square foot to get the acreage we need to feed someone with a hydroponic greenhouse.
So, with something super dense in calories and a high yield, like a potato. We can really make it work for us. But, you’d likely want to add some variety to your meals and mix it up with beans, rice, oats, lettuce, tomatoes, etc. And you’ll likely land in the 1000–2000 sq. ft. per person if you want some variety, some safety for anything that goes wrong and you are willing to eat the dense calorie foods!
Want to explore more? Join us at World From Scratch and we’d be happy to discuss the topic with you!
