The Meltdown Blog

Jim Rogers certainly thinks so: "If I'm right, agriculture is going to become one of the great industries of the next 20 years, 30 years"

While he's investing in Brazil and Canada without personally getting his hands dirty, ordinary Americans are starting to grow vegetables in their "recession gardens" to squeeze every penny out of their food budget: Dollars from dirt: Economy spurs home garden boom

Finally, here's a petition urging president Obama to turn the "First Lawn" into an organic garden.

So, is it time to become a backyard farmer? It depends:

• In a well-functioning economy, it would be extremely inefficient to cultivate your own vegetables (though you could say that it makes you more productive because of health benefits or its recreational effect). Having a few farmers grow the food for the rest of us was what enabled our civilization to "advance" in the first place (you can't create exotic financial instruments while you're busy surviving).
• You could, however, argue that we're going through an economic adaptation process and that it makes sense for unemployed or underemployed individuals to make productive use of their time by temporarily turning to gardening (better than sitting in front of the TV eating junk food).
• Then there's also the doomsday view: a total economic collapse forcing us to return to a subsistence economy. In this case, however, you should also think about how you'd defend your vegetables against hungry neighbors. As my friend P. put it: "Why should I prepare? My neighbors are all over 60".