Buying Woodland

[Kurt Barlow]

I think the answer is not to be greedy. Buy just about sufficient land for your own needs (i.e. don't buy 100 acres when you could manage with 5) make sure it is fully cultivated not used as a vanity project - Pony Club type stuff, for instance - and then keep your head down.

Im not convinced that the run to the hills approach is necessarily the wisest choice in a post peak oil world.

20 acres out in the sticks is all very well but what about when you need to get to town for provisions / sell produce to buy provisions. Public transport isn't going to be available.

My thoughts are that the safest place is probably towns with reasonably good public transport networks. Your ideal house is one which can be easily thermally upgraded and with a large garden - interwar semis a good example. This way you have the best of many worlds, close to potential work, markets, land to grow at least part of your food. You could also produce a fair amount of your own energy needs on these plots.

If it gets really bad one option maybe to sharecrop with elderly infirmed neighbours - cultivate their garden in exchange for half the output. Im getting to be a real hippy!

Edited March 5, 2008 by Kurt Barlow

[Kurt Barlow]

You're talking about farms. A small holding is enough to provide for a whole family. If you own a farm then you will have enough to provide for your own family and help feed the nation. The difference being that you can't be rationed whereas everyone else will be.

In the event of a serious flu pandemic Mr Academic and I wouldn't be looking after just ourselves, we expect our friends and relatives to come up and stay with us as well.

Just delaying the enevitable - once your friends descent back into civilisation the flu will strike!

That said probably best being out the way when the pandemic peaks

[Selling up]

I genuinely believe that if you don't buy enough land to feed yourself and your family (ideally with some land left over to be able to grow and sell your surplus produce locally) in the next few years, the eventual price will forever preclude such ownership

But the problem is, the picture you're painting would imply total social breakdown. Who will care whose names are on the deeds then?

[cartimandua51]

Indeed, private land was forcibly taken from farmers during WWII, under the powers of the County War Agricultural Committees. In one instance, a farmer was shot dead for refusing to hand over his land:

Read the full story here

Do you honestly believe you'd be allowed to use your land solely for your own use if the nation was starving? Think again.

He was going to be evicted for refusing to plough his land so as to be productive. As I said, I've no doubt you could be required to grow things for the communal good, though they didn't usually interfere with "back-yard" growing. Churchill wrote about having to strike a balance between forcing farmers to send animals to market, and allowing them to retain them to build up stocks, for example.

[lets get it right]

When the pigs are standing in line to go to slaughter they are very sympathetic to the plight of farmers. The other day one was heard to say to another as they waited to board the lorry for the first and final journey, 'well, looks like this is it then, our number's up'.

'Yes, indeed' replied the other pig, 'but it's the farmer I feel sorry for. He's fed and housed us all our short lives and now, whereas we are just going to lose our lives, he's going to lose £20 on each of us'

The other pig thought about this for a moment and said; 'Well I'm quite happy not to die if it will save him £20.00'

[gordonbrown]

I've recently been contemplating buying some woodland. Partly, I like the idea of having a little bit (maybe an acre or three) of my own woodland just for recreational purposes -- a bit of camping or getting away from the proverbial 'all'.

I have to say, it seems a bit weird to want to own a bit of the countryside, just for the sake of owning it. Why not just enjoy it? It's not really important to own it. You will be dead soon and it wont matter. Is it something to do with England weird feudal land access laws? You need to get yourselves the right to roam and then you don’t have to give a toss about who owns what.

[Guest X-QUORK]

You're talking about farms.

I'm talking about the principle, and indeed precedent, of the government forcibly taking land from private owners during times of national crisis.

Don't get me wrong, I understand your urge to get away from all the cr@p we're likely to face in future, but I suspect the long arm of the government will have no compunction about reaching out and bursting your idyll bubble if it needs to.

[cartimandua51]

Im not convinced that the run to the hills approach is necessarily the wisest choice in a post peak oil world.

20 acres out in the sticks is all very well but what about when you need to get to town for provisions / sell produce to buy provisions. Public transport isn't going to be available.

My thoughts are that the safest place is probably towns with reasonably good public transport networks. Your ideal house is one which can be easily thermally upgraded and with a large garden - interwar semis a good example. This way you have the best of many worlds, close to potential work, markets, land to grow at least part of your food. You could also produce a fair amount of your own energy needs on these plots.

If it gets really bad one option maybe to sharecrop with elderly infirmed neighbours - cultivate their garden in exchange for half the output. Im getting to be a real hippy!

Horse? Bicycles?

Town semis are good news if things are merely bad, as they were in WW2. There wasn't social breakdown, partly because most young men were in the armed forces and otherwise occupied! With an "I know my rights" generation of young people who've never worked, and many of whose parents have never worked, the further I am from anywhere they can get to on foot, the happier I'll be.

Like the sharecropping idea though - it was on the news ?last night as a solution to the long waiting lists for allotments.

[Guest Skint Academic]

Just delaying the enevitable - once your friends descent back into civilisation the flu will strike!

That said probably best being out the way when the pandemic peaks

Well that's the idea. Sit it out until there's proper medical care again and possibly even a developed vaccine. When flu hits this time, it's going to sweep around the world like nothing you have ever seen. Just look at how cheap and common place travel is now. Nor is it about just avoiding becoming infected for a short while, but avoiding the social break down that will come as well.

[Guest Skint Academic]

I'm talking about the principle, and indeed precedent, of the government forcibly taking land from private owners during times of national crisis.

Don't get me wrong, I understand your urge to get away from all the cr@p we're likely to face in future, but I suspect the long arm of the government will have no compunction about reaching out and bursting your idyll bubble if it needs to.

I can see this being a possibility where there's fertile land surrounded by large towns that need feeding (for example, Hampshire or Sussex where self sufficiency is so much easier), but in the highlands of Scotland, we'll be surrounded by lots more wild open land that isn't being used.

[Kurt Barlow]

Well that's the idea. Sit it out until there's proper medical care again and possibly even a developed vaccine. When flu hits this time, it's going to sweep around the world like nothing you have ever seen. Just look at how cheap and common place travel is now. Nor is it about just avoiding becoming infected for a short while, but avoiding the social break down that will come as well.

Unless one of your friends / family is incubating the virus on arrival and you will be miles from anywhere during the onset of symptoms. Im trying to think of a film

Perhaps you should quarantine them in the pig shed for 40 days

[Guest Steve Cook]

But the problem is, the picture you're painting would imply total social breakdown. Who will care whose names are on the deeds then?

You are correct.

However, I would hope such a total societal breakdown is at least 2 or three decades away.

At that point, I would hope that sufficient people have gathered together in loose smallholding collectives for the purpose of mutual protection. The truth is that a single smallholder will never be able to produce all of the things necessary for complete self sufficiency and will never be able to protect themselves independantly. New local economieswill spring up to deal with these local materials/service needs. With these local economies will come new localized communal bonds. Bonds that currently do not exist in our agri-chem factory-farmland countryside.

Steve

Edited March 5, 2008 by Steve Cook

[cartimandua51]

I agree that owning a sufficient acreage of arable land to feed one's family is a wise course. I actually did this back in 1989/90 - sold my house in a small market town and purchased a property with 5 acres. However, the expected global bust never materialised - house prices were re-inflated - and I was 18 years too early!

Whilst we are on a survivalist thread, how much land does one need to survive on? I'm assuming standard Southern England land, not Scottish moors. You had 5 acres; and I dimly recollect that back in the 70s John Seymour said 5 acres for a family.

Can one person manage 5 acres without mega investment in machinery? My OH is hell-bent on buying a property with enough land for him to work; I personally reckon his enthusiasm will last, oh, about 3 months of feeding the slugs etc, and nothing short of starvation will get me weeding in February. However, in order to direct his/our search to even faintly possible properties I'd appreciate some advice.

Yes, I know this is HPC so why buy yada yada, but we have sold up and are living in temporary accommodation and we want somewhere where we can settle for the next 20 years without having to consult landlords about decoration and pets!

[Guest Steve Cook]

...You also have to question the morals of grabbing a finite resource just for yourself. No better than the amatuer BTL brigade.

Really. For the sake of argument, assume I am right. That being the case, would it not be an immoral act of the worst kind not to do all I can to protect and feed my family.

Investing in land for the purposes of capital accruel on the back of that investment is one thing. Buying land to sustain oneself and one's family is quite another.

Steve

[Guest Skint Academic]

Unless one of your friends / family is incubating the virus on arrival and you will be miles from anywhere during the onset of symptoms. Im trying to think of a film

Perhaps you should quarantine them in the pig shed for 40 days

We've discussed this. We'd ideally like a separate one bedroom cottage as a quarantine area where people stay for a month. If nothing else, we could build a wooden shack to house people or just have tents and make sure that they are well heated. Many of properties in the highlands have the remains of old stone crofts in their grounds that could easily be renovated. One idea that occurred to me is that we could use a static caravan for renting out to tourists to help bring in an income, but which could be used as a quarantine area in the event of a flu pandemic.

[Methinkshe]

Whilst we are on a survivalist thread, how much land does one need to survive on? I'm assuming standard Southern England land, not Scottish moors. You had 5 acres; and I dimly recollect that back in the 70s John Seymour said 5 acres for a family.

Can one person manage 5 acres without mega investment in machinery? My OH is hell-bent on buying a property with enough land for him to work; I personally reckon his enthusiasm will last, oh, about 3 months of feeding the slugs etc, and nothing short of starvation will get me weeding in February. However, in order to direct his/our search to even faintly possible properties I'd appreciate some advice.

Yes, I know this is HPC so why buy yada yada, but we have sold up and are living in temporary accommodation and we want somewhere where we can settle for the next 20 years without having to consult landlords about decoration and pets!

You have forgotten the cheapest recourse - children. I made sure that among my children existed the following trades: carpenter, builder, engineer, nurse, electrician, horticulturist, knock-em-dead gorgeous daughter for PR and....etc. I deliberately guided my kids into trades like carpentry and electricis, and useful professions like nursing, instead of worthless degrees in meejah studies and accompanying student loans. When the crunch comes, we will not need rationed fuel to run broken down farm machinery - we will have hands. Or an engineer who can design from scratch any needed aid to manual work.

[Guest Steve Cook]

Whilst we are on a survivalist thread, how much land does one need to survive on? I'm assuming standard Southern England land, not Scottish moors. You had 5 acres; and I dimly recollect that back in the 70s John Seymour said 5 acres for a family.

Can one person manage 5 acres without mega investment in machinery? My OH is hell-bent on buying a property with enough land for him to work; I personally reckon his enthusiasm will last, oh, about 3 months of feeding the slugs etc, and nothing short of starvation will get me weeding in February. However, in order to direct his/our search to even faintly possible properties I'd appreciate some advice.

Yes, I know this is HPC so why buy yada yada, but we have sold up and are living in temporary accommodation and we want somewhere where we can settle for the next 20 years without having to consult landlords about decoration and pets!

You need from 1.5 to 3 acres per person depending on the quality of the land. That is assuming you are not putting oil derived chemical fertilizers on the land and that is is not factory farmed with large oil driven machinery. Or to put it another way 1 hectare to 2 people. This can be described with the ratio 2:1. The current ratio in the UK in 2008 is 11:1. this i sonly maintained through a combination of large imports of food plus intensive oil driven farming in our own farmland. Take the oil away......

no more cheap imports...no more intensive farming=famine

Steve

Edited March 5, 2008 by Steve Cook

[agb41]

Steve

Look we all know your name is Steve. It's in your profile name and every damned post. Are you building up to one day posting with "Fred" at the end or something?

[Ignorant Steve]

Going back to the OP.

If all you want is a few acres to "get away from it all" or to do the occasional bit of camping then surely a much simpler alternative is to buy a house with over half an acre of garden and plant a secluded area.

I've planted a small orchard and a few other ornamental trees with just this in mind. So much easier to pop into the garden for a couple of hours than to schlep miles to an overgrown, litter strewn, rat infested bit of scrub. (Or were you planning on spending hours managing your woodland too?)

[Guest Steve Cook]

I shoudl add, if you were to use amimal power (horse and plough) you would need more land again since the animal would need feeding. However, this would free up considerable time to work in other ways

Steve

[Guest Steve Cook]

Look we all know your name is Steve. It's in your profile name and every damned post. Are you building up to one day posting with "Fred" at the end or something?

Actually.....I honestly dont really think about it.

My job requires that I send off tons of emails per day. They all get signed off with Steve.

Just ahabbit. If it is irritating you that much I will be happy to refrain.

....except when I forget...

Ste....ooops....

[Ignorant Steve]

We've discussed this. We'd ideally like a separate one bedroom cottage as a quarantine area where people stay for a month. If nothing else, we could build a wooden shack to house people or just have tents and make sure that they are well heated. Many of properties in the highlands have the remains of old stone crofts in their grounds that could easily be renovated. One idea that occurred to me is that we could use a static caravan for renting out to tourists to help bring in an income, but which could be used as a quarantine area in the event of a flu pandemic.

This is the most surreal post in any thread I've ever read.

Are you seriously basing your life decisions on such scenarios?

[Austin Allegro]

It's amazing really, isn't it, that in the space of a decade we've gone from widespread optimism and "things can onkly get better" to people seriously contemplating that the UK might decline to such levels that subsistence farming may become a reality again. That growing feeling of malaise in the country at the moment is palpable.

Not all of us were jerking off in ecstasy when the Cheshire Cat got elected in '97. In the office I worked in then, I used to do little topical/satirical cartoons on a paintshop programme and circulate them. When Labour got in, I did a cartoon called 'Britain 2007' showing piles of rubbish bags being collected by troops. It didn't go down very well!

As for the run to the hills brigade, I really don't see the point in a country like the UK. As any reader of John Christopher or John Wyndham knows, in any apocalyptic scenario the countryside gets overrun with bands of desperate town dwellers. Even if the government permitted you to arm yourself, how would you defend your plot against them?

[Guest Skint Academic]

Whilst we are on a survivalist thread, how much land does one need to survive on? I'm assuming standard Southern England land, not Scottish moors. You had 5 acres; and I dimly recollect that back in the 70s John Seymour said 5 acres for a family.

Can one person manage 5 acres without mega investment in machinery? My OH is hell-bent on buying a property with enough land for him to work; I personally reckon his enthusiasm will last, oh, about 3 months of feeding the slugs etc, and nothing short of starvation will get me weeding in February. However, in order to direct his/our search to even faintly possible properties I'd appreciate some advice.

Yes, I know this is HPC so why buy yada yada, but we have sold up and are living in temporary accommodation and we want somewhere where we can settle for the next 20 years without having to consult landlords about decoration and pets!

John Seymour probably needs 5 acres because he was self sufficient in absolutely everything and didn't intend going without!

Ideally we would like about 5 acres but I am not sure that we'll be getting it. Even one acre would be good for us. But we're also looking at properties with lots of land with the intention of waiting for the prices to drop to the point where we can buy. One idea is that we buy the land and self build instead.

We've been practising growing food intensively in a small garden and it's amazing what you can do with a minute amount of land if you put the effort in. For example, potatoes and strawberries can be grown in tall buckets. Tomatoes can be grown in hanging baskets or window sill boxes. Cows need a lot of land, but goats and chickens don't. I'd go out and forage for a lot of food if I hadn't been living around polluted towns. But you can go out and chop up fallen firewood. That's a lot of fun!

Slugs aren't too much of a problem if you build a nice froggery. Frogs are also very cute. We've always had a problem with weeds because we keep moving (we're also renting). We haven't tried this yet but one method is to attack the ground with a blow torch as this germinates the seeds and all the weeds come up at once allowing you to get rid of them. I tried an experiment once in one garden. I didn't bother weeding. I found the slugs didn't home in on my vegetables as there was so much other stuff to nibble on.

[Ignorant Steve]

John Seymour probably needs 5 acres because he was self sufficient in absolutely everything and didn't intend going without!

Ideally we would like about 5 acres but I am not sure that we'll be getting it. Even one acre would be good for us. But we're also looking at properties with lots of land with the intention of waiting for the prices to drop to the point where we can buy. One idea is that we buy the land and self build instead.

We've been practising growing food intensively in a small garden and it's amazing what you can do with a minute amount of land if you put the effort in. For example, potatoes and strawberries can be grown in tall buckets. Tomatoes can be grown in hanging baskets or window sill boxes. Cows need a lot of land, but goats and chickens don't. I'd go out and forage for a lot of food if I hadn't been living around polluted towns. But you can go out and chop up fallen firewood. That's a lot of fun!

Slugs aren't too much of a problem if you build a nice froggery. Frogs are also very cute. We've always had a problem with weeds because we keep moving (we're also renting). We haven't tried this yet but one method is to attack the ground with a blow torch as this germinates the seeds and all the weeds come up at once allowing you to get rid of them. I tried an experiment once in one garden. I didn't bother weeding. I found the slugs didn't home in on my vegetables as there was so much other stuff to nibble on.

"Cows need a lot of land" - this just gets better by the minute.