[Altair]

Originally Posted by Sapphirez

Why do societies spend tedious hours or months picking tiny little parcels of rice or fashioning grains into flours for pastas and all this as was mentioned as staple foods? Why wouldn't we just devote that time, energy, and monetary investment into building up vast gardens and that agriculture to supply societies with?

Originally Posted by Sapphirez

Is it really that hard to imagine or implement? No it certainly is not, here on Earth things grow.. it's what they do.

You need different soil for different food production. Rice is produced in wet areas where production of many fruits wouldn't be a success. Where I live many fruits grow best in dry and sandy soil, yet a large chunk of the country also happens to be sea clay soil. It depends on where you are and what you want to grow...

Grains as well as beans are excellent food source for us ((the biggest issue is that most of what we produce goes to livestock)) and they can be produced and shipped in large quantities, and therefore have lower environmental impact. Doing this with fruit that needs to be cooled and kept fresh has a larger impact than doing it with beans and grains. If we had to sustain ourselves on fruit alone we'd run into serious trouble, not just due to soil limitations and nutritional needs but also because we would have to preserve it and needed a lot of fruit produce all year round..

My family had/have fruit trees and bushes, chickens, and vegetable garden. It isn't entirely self sufficient, and you're still dependent upon different food sources. One group of foods alone won't get you far..

What we can do is become less dependent on livestock. They also needs grains/beans so we waste a lot of precious space as well as water. Just last year, when we had a very hot and dry summer, much of the country's water was used for livestock farming, putting further strain on the environment and drying up forests even more..