Poisons are poisons. I don’t care if they blow over to your neighbors yard upon application or not. Eventually they will get there. They are also absorbed by the plant that you eat from the first application on. Each application increases the dosage.
You do realize that plants naturally produce poisons to combat pests and diseases, and levels of these toxins are often higher than trace amounts of synthetic chemicals. If you spray plants with pesticides, they have lower levels of these natural toxins. The question is which one is worse for you.
and at least try saving "some" seeds. The usual response is that 'its too hard' which is simply pitiful, and this is from alleged "country" folks. I guess that despite all the complaining, we're not suffering quite bad enough yet
There are people on eBay saving their seeds and selling those seeds. (like me) Considering the thousands of dollars I, and other eBay sellers are making, I'd agree that folks aren't suffering enough to save seeds themselves.
And what would it cost (globally) if most of your food came from local sources where you didn’t have to burn fuel to ship it thousands of miles from where it grows. The whole economic thing is a smoke screen.
Have you ever been to a farmers market and compared the price of locally grown produce with the price in a supermarket? Eggs are 99 cents at Aldi's - but locally produced eggs go for $1.80 at the local produce auction. The whole economic thing is just a smokescreen for folks who do not understand economics.
then there is the problem of protein. raising meat is expensive and if you don't have land, you are not going to be able to do it.
Meat is not the only source of protein. Corn and beans provides a very complete protein. Insects are another source of protein - studies say you can get adequate protein from grasshoppers by gathering grasshoppers one hour a day in fields, and one hour a week gathering grasshoppers along lakes. Used to, poor folks use ratmeal instead of flour to make their bread. (ratmeal is ground up insects.)
if our only source of food had been the garden, we would have starved to death.
As the local crop advisor says, "If food disappeared off the shelves, most folks would starve in the land of plenty." Does the grass in your yard grow? Grass is actually very nutritious for you. Dandelions were brought to North America as a vegetable crop. Do nettles or lambsquarters or clover or the myriad of other wild plants grow in your area? What about nuts and acorns? Most folks would be shocked if they only knew how many plants are edible.
Maybe you are trying to grow the wrong crops for your area.
the cost of fuel is driving up the cost of even small farming. unless you have 5 or 6 kids who drop out of school to farm, doing it by hand is a pretty tough prospect.
I'm a small time farmer. My $ production per acre is quite high compared to conventional farming. I don't have ANY kids to help me. It all depends on management - you can work hard or you can work smart.
if you don't live in a rural area, good luck raising what you need. never mind that you need lots of space to be self sufficient, you town or council probably won't let you do what you need to raise meat and even tear up you property to properly raise veggies. the old victory gardens would not happen in a HOA.
Do you have ANY greenspace? Eat your yard. My brother told me when he was in the military, in poor areas with apartment buildings, they would take a piece of PVC pipe, and drill holes in the side of it. They would stand it on end, fill it with dirt, and plant plants in the side of it. These vertical containers would line stairways and fire escapes.
You don't need that much garden space to be self sufficient. Last year, 3 rows of kidney beans yielded me over 5 gallons of dried beans. That's a lot of servings of beans... For most garden, 4-8 sq feet can easily produce a pound of corn. How many pounds of cornmeal do you eat a year? Lots of southern folks ate johnnycakes to survive after the civil war.