Acres Needed to Feed Dunbar Village

Corn and wheat have 1640 or 1540 cal/lb, so 577 lb of grain per year per person is needed based on 2500 calorie diet. At 40 bu/acre for wheat, 100 bu/acre yields of corn - at 60 lb/bushel - that is 2400lb wheat and 6000 lb corn. So 20-50 acres are needed. But if we like paleo diet sweet potatoes - these yield 400 bushels or 20000 lb - but only 389 calories per pound - means a 100 bushel of corn equivalent. Let’s say that we do a lot of sweet potato and some grain - so that 40 acres is needed for a village. https://extension2.missouri.edu/g6368. $700M market for sweet potato, USA. https://www.agmrc.org/commodities-products/vegetables/sweet-potatoes/. Much smaller crop of Potatoes in Missouri - with 110 hundredweight average crop - http://www.ipmcenters.org/cropprofiles/docs/mopotato.pdf.

Naturally a full diet requires more than wheat and potatoes, but this is just to demonstrate a baseline on food energetics alone. Further, Badgersett Research proposes that 20-30% of tree crops interplanted in field crops do not decrease the yield of the field crop, and only adds to the overall food and fiber potential. In other words, 40 acres, when done wisely, is indeed sufficient.

40 acre per day sweet potato planter -

Vine snapper + harvester -