Food growing · Scale up and integrate · food-23

Assess staple crops honestly

Staples (grains, dry legumes, potatoes and other roots) supply most calories but need far more land, water and processing than vegetables. Decide on evidence from your own yields and water budget whether to grow them.

How

Run the calorie plan first (food-31). It shows how many kilograms of a staple and how much bed area one person needs.
Start with the calorie-dense crops easiest to grow and store at home: potatoes or sweet potatoes, dry beans and squash, rather than grains that need threshing and milling.
Check water: FAO gives mid-season Kc of about 1.15 for potato and dry beans and 1.20 for field maize, higher than most leafy vegetables, so run the Garden water need calculator on the planned area first.
Trial a small plot for one season and weigh the harvest (food-21) before committing more land.
Plan storage and processing (drying, threshing, root cellar) with the living module before planting at scale.
Treat full calorie self-sufficiency as a long-term goal. FAO describes home gardens as a source of diversity and better nutrition alongside, not instead of, other food sources.

Sources

Crop evapotranspiration (FAO Irrigation and Drainage Paper 56), Chapter 6: ETc single crop coefficient (Kc). FAO, accessed 2026-11
Livelihoods grow in gardens (FAO Diversification Booklet No. 2), Foreword. FAO, accessed 2026-11
Planning a Garden (E-289). Texas A&M AgriLife Extension, accessed 2026-11

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