The Work of Alik Pelman

Alik Pelman

Two videos:

* "Man grows ALL of his food on 750m²"

Alik Pelman grows ALL of his food on only 750m² (0.075 hectars \ 0.185 acres). To achieve this, it takes him only 8 hours of work per month, and [he] uses only rain water for most of his crops.

* "Follow Up with Alik Pelman (how to become food self sufficient on just 750m²)"

In this follow-up video, we dive into the techniques and practices employed by Alik to achieve remarkable nutritional self-sufficiency on just 750m² of land. We go into the exact yearly routine, and list the time it takes for each task. At the recap in the end, you can see exactly how it adds up to only 12 working days a year

And two scientific papers:

* "A life-cycle approach highlights the nutritional and environmental superiority of agroecology over conventional farming: A case study of a Mediterranean farm"

Providing equitable food security for a growing population while minimizing environmental impacts and enhancing resilience to climate shocks is an ongoing challenge. Here, we quantify the resource intensity, environmental impacts and nutritional output of a small (0.075 ha) low-input subsistence Mediterranean agroecological farm in a developed nation that is based on intercropping and annual crop rotation. The farm provides one individual, the proprietor, with nutritional self-sufficiency (adequate intake of an array of macro- and micro-nutrients) with limited labor, no synthetic fertilizers or herbicides, and zero waste, effectively closing a full farm-table-farm cycle. We find that the agroecological farm outperforms conventional farming as practiced in the same country in terms of both lower environmental burdens, across all examined environmental metrics (63% lower on average) per kg produce, and higher nutritional score (66% higher on average). Per equal farmland, the environmental lopsidedness was even higher (79% lower than conventional farming on average), with nearly the same nutritional score (3% lower on average). Moreover, when considering total land area, which includes farmland and supporting non-agricultural lands, as well as postgate impacts and food losses, the advantage of the agroecological system over conventional farming is even more pronounced. Situated within a Mediterranean region that is undergoing rapid climate change, this food system is a unique case study of nutrition- and environment-oriented food production system. While its deployment potential is limited by lack of supportive policies, it nonetheless represents one of the most starkly bold alternatives to current food systems.

* "Individual nutritional self-sufficiency: a viable option in the present era"

At the present state of industrialized agriculture and specialized economy, achieving nutritional self-sufficiency on a personal level is widely considered a naïve goal, unsuited to the present technological era. Furthermore, nutritional self-sufficiency is considered overly demanding in terms of training, land, labor intensity, and time requirements. This study contests these common notions. Drawing on a study of a small (approximately 0.075 ha) low-input self-sufficient farm in an industrialized country, we show that achieving nutritional self-sufficiency on this farm required modest initial agricultural training, a small parcel of land, and, perhaps most surprisingly, a single day of labor per month, on average. We offer these results as proof of concept that, when properly planned, nutritional self-sufficiency may be sustained over an extended period (more than a decade) and that doing so may be compatible with working full-time outside the farm, as well as engaging in regular leisure activities. We also propose that some upscaling is viable at the industrial, small-scale, and household levels.