Produced by: Mohsin Shaikh
Could your city feed itself in a nuclear winter? A bold New Zealand study says yes—but only if we rethink our streets as survival farms.
In Palmerston North, backyard gardens could feed just 20% of people—forcing the rest to rely on industrial farms beyond city limits to avoid mass starvation.
Under normal skies, peas top the list as the city’s ultimate survival crop—packed with protein, thriving in small urban patches.
When nuclear winter strikes, sunlight-hungry crops fail. Spinach, sugar beet, wheat, and carrots become humanity’s last lifeline.
No diesel? No food. The study urges cities to grow canola to produce biodiesel—keeping farm machines running even when oil imports vanish.
To survive a global disaster, Palmerston North would need 1140 hectares of farmland dedicated solely to high-yield staples like wheat and potatoes.
Under post-apocalypse gloom, cities will need even more farmland to meet basic needs, thanks to plummeting yields of cold-resistant crops.
110 hectares of canola fields could power all farming equipment—making biofuel production as critical as food itself in collapse scenarios.
From rooftops to parks, the study argues cities must transform every inch into food zones—turning passive urban spaces into humanity’s last agricultural frontier.