I have heard that a family of four can be kept fed 365 days a year using only 8 square metres of land. Is this really possible anywhere in the world? Could it really take only 2 hours a week as was suggested, and what would be on the menu? (Continued)
鈥� Since answering this question, I have thought of two important additional points.
First, the human body is not able to metabolise 100 per cent of the energy stored in the plant material that it eats, so this would increase the land area needed to feed a person. Presumably the exact percentage we can metabolise depends on food type.
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鈥淗umans cannot metabolise 100 per cent of the energy in the plant material that they eat鈥�
Secondly, cloud cover would reduce the amount of direct solar radiation that reaches the Earth鈥檚 surface, further increasing the land area needed per person.
Two square metres is starting to look unfeasible.
Simon Iveson, Pembangunan Negeri University, Yogyakarta, Indonesia