Growing food at several separate sites does not reduce how much a raider takes on average, but it makes losing the whole harvest much less likely, because the sites must each be found. Keep the garden near the base to 30-40% of total production and put the rest in 3-5 smaller gardens 200 m to 2 km away, each with a different crop mix, so that no single raid, frost or blight takes everything.
Part of Defensive Agriculture
Dispersed food production is the practice of spreading a community’s growing across multiple separate plots so that loss at any one is survivable.
Dispersal Changes The Worst Case, Not The Average
If each site has the same chance of being raided, spreading the crop across more sites leaves the average share lost unchanged. If each of n equal sites is hit independently with probability p, the expected fraction lost is still p. What changes is the chance of the worst outcome, losing all of it, which is p raised to the power n.
| Sites (equal shares) | Chance all are lost (p = 0.3 each, independent) | Share lost if one site is hit |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 0.30 | 100% |
| 2 | 0.09 | 50% |
| 3 | 0.027 | 33% |
| 4 | 0.0081 | 25% |
| 5 | 0.0024 | 20% |
The value p = 0.3 is an illustration, not an estimate. The “independent” part is the weak assumption: raiders who find one site by following a worn path, a smoke trail or your people may find the rest. Dispersal protects only as far as the sites are hard to link, which is the subject of Hidden Garden Placement.
What The Parent Article Splits
The parent article keeps the primary garden near the base at 30-40% of production, and adds 3-5 satellite gardens, each growing different crops. The remainder is 100 − 30 = 70% or 100 − 40 = 60%, shared among the satellites:
- 3 satellites: 70 / 3 = 23% or 60 / 3 = 20% each.
- 5 satellites: 70 / 5 = 14% or 60 / 5 = 12% each.
So each satellite holds 12% to 23% of the crop, and the largest single loss is the primary garden at 30-40%. The numbers are the parent article’s design choice, not a tested optimum.
Method: Set Up A Dispersed Production Plan
Step 1: Count what you grow. List the crops and the share of total calories each provides.
Step 2: Decide what stays at the base. Crops tended daily, the seedlings, the herbs. Keep the base garden to its share.
Step 3: Assign crops to satellite sites. Give each satellite a different mix, so that frost, blight or a flood at one site does not take the whole of a crop. See Satellite Garden Sites.
Step 4: Plan travel. A site 2 km away is a walk of about half an hour each way at an easy pace (2 km at 4 to 5 km/h is 24 to 30 minutes), and one 200 m away is a few minutes. A site visited daily wears a path. Visit less often and vary the route, as in Reducing Agricultural Signatures.
Step 5: Spread the storage too. Dispersed fields with one barn are one target again; see Dispersed Storage.
What Dispersal Costs
- Time. Travel to distant sites is time not spent growing.
- Watching. Nobody sees a remote plot being stripped, so you learn of it late.
- People alone. A person working far from help is exposed to injury and to raiders.
- Duplication. Each site needs tools, seed and water, or a way to carry them.
Common Mistakes
- Equal sites on the same path. They are one target seen from one trail.
- Every site growing the same crop. One blight takes everything.
- No record of where the plots are. If the one person who knows is hurt, the plots are lost; see Multiple Storage Sites for the same problem with food stores.
- Treating dispersal as a substitute for good relations. Defensive Architecture says walls don’t fight, people do; neighbours and allies are a protection no site layout replaces.
Working alone far from help
A person who injures themselves at a remote plot may not be found for hours. Do not work satellite sites alone where you can avoid it; tell someone where you are going and when you expect back, carry water and a way to call, and know the route home in the dark.
What’s Next
- Learn next: Satellite Garden Sites — choosing where the extra plots go
- Combine with: Hidden Food Caches — the same principle applied to stored food