Permaculture Manchester . . . lets put some green on the urban scene

My father John H Burton wrote the attached article some time in the 1970s or possibly 1980s.  I think it was published in a newsletter about self reliance.

John was a teacher of rural and envirnomental studies - eventually lecturing at what was then Alsager teacher training college (now part of Manchester Metropolitan Univeristy).  He died in 1997.

He was always interested in the question of land use and deplored the import of foodstuffs.  He himself produced all the vegetables and most fruit consumed by the family on a plot not much bigger than the 1/2 acre described here.   He was a very skilled gardener, getting good yields and losing little to pests.  He used increasingly organic methods and had a good understanding of ecological principles.

In this article he makes some calculations based on yields experienced growers like himself typically obtained to work out how little land a couple could feed themselves on.  He was not advocating that everyone did this of cousrse, but demonstrating through this extreme case the possibilities.  While there have been more recent calculations of the land needed I think it worth reproducing his work here (he would have loved - and hated the Internet) since it was based on his own work in Cheshire and the topic of local food production is becoming ever more relevant.

His conclusion was that it was theoretically possible to feed an adult on 1/4 acre (0.1 hectare).

In many ways he was ahead of his time - although he in turn looked back to his father's cultivation in what is now outer London between the 1920s and 1950s.

He was not a permaculturalist, although was aware of the approach (and he used  Odum's work, one of the scientific foundations of PC, in his teaching), but he did use organic methods and was a member of HDRA, corresponding with its founder Lawrence D Hills.

The article has been scanned frojm the typescript - not great quality, but readable.

Mark Burton