I have been working a big chunk of the last week clearing out a woods/orchard area for some of this but we are talking manual farming with minimal upkeep since I don't live at the location full time. There is apparently the concept of "food forest" that some of the people here are researching.

Either way, it starts with removal of underbrush and the lower branches of the trees so that air and light get to the forest floor.

I hauled a 10HP chipper to the place but it is not nearly powerful enough to handle the chipping job of what turns out to be an orchard that stood neglected for around 14 years. Even 14 years ago, it had not been particularly well cared for, and I estimate the fruit trees were planted in the early 1980s. What happens is the middle foilage areas become one big bushy mess and it takes a couple seasons to recover the trees to productivity after a lot of that junk gets cut out. I guess part of the reality I have to deal with is that my background on aborist tree care is for landscaping, not fruit production, so shitty looking trees can product more and better fruit than a lot of picturesque looking tress.

The way I am cleaning the woods up, a dozen small one bedroom cabins with a common workshop and communal kitchen is entirely realistic. Matter of fact, 20 residential cabins and a full on chow hall is more like it.

In any event, the formula is work + resources = product. Permaculture is a fancy new word for the age old practice of self sufficient farming.

One issue is that the places need years of prep before they can be set up for having a lot of people on permanent residency. I am working mostly alone on the section that I am in charge of here and we just don't have the manpower or pooled resources to make it very productive. Anyone bugging out to this location would need to bring or pre-position a minimum of six months worth of supplies just on the model of getting it up to speed for food production, and realistically, we would be looking at two full seasons, that's two years before most meals would be the product of actual on property food production. I would guess though, that a big chunk of the diet would be locally produced toward the end of the first regular garden season.

I think what works in the ongoing lifestyle situation is that if you are middle class or below, then food production as a non-taxable means of personal wealth production and conservation is a viable alternative to going on the treadmill of going out to work for "the man" and pay more taxes, and become more dependent on the system, where the classes targeted for extermination (surplus workers in an increasingly service based post industrial economy) can exercise more autonomy through self sufficiency.

Reducing your food bill by say, $250 per month might mean the difference between still owning a pickup truck in addition to the family car on a minimum legal wage job vs working an additional part time job for less take home pay than what you save on having your own food production, which you can't get laid off or fired from.