Self-Sufficiency Calculator
Calculate your household food self-sufficiency based on garden space, fruit trees, laying hens, and dairy animals.
About this calculator
This calculator scores how much of your household's food needs a homestead's garden, orchard, hens, and dairy animals can realistically cover, broken into four separate percentages. Vegetable sufficiency compares an assumed need of 200 pounds per person per year against garden output at 0.6 pounds per square foot; fruit sufficiency compares 100 pounds per person per year against 150 pounds per mature fruit tree. Protein sufficiency is the most composite figure: it credits roughly 31 pounds of egg protein per hen per year (from about 250 eggs) and converts dairy animal output into protein poundage using a milk-protein conversion factor of 3.4%, then measures both against a 73-pound-per-person annual protein target. All three percentages are capped at 100% individually, so overproducing eggs won't offset an undersized garden in their own category.
Overall Self-Sufficiency is a weighted blend — 40% vegetables, 20% fruit, 40% protein — reflecting how the calculator treats produce and protein as the two pillars of food security, with fruit weighted lightly as more of a supplement. Calorie Sufficiency is calculated independently from a separate calorie budget (2,000 calories per person per day) and separate per-food calorie assumptions — garden produce at 100 cal/lb, fruit at 200 cal/lb, eggs at 72 calories each, and milk at roughly 290 cal/lb — so it can diverge meaningfully from the weighted percentage above. Treat both scores as rough planning gauges: they don't account for crop failure, seasonal gaps, or the labor and infrastructure needed to actually harvest, milk, and preserve at the assumed rates.
Inputs
Results
Overall Self-Sufficiency
99.1%
Calorie Sufficiency
45%
How to Use This Calculator
- Enter Family Size and Garden Sq Ft — the calculator estimates vegetable production at ~0.5 lb per sq ft per season.
- Input Fruit Tree Count and the number of Egg-Laying Hens and Dairy Animals (goats, cows, etc.).
- Review Vegetable Self-Sufficiency (%) and Fruit Self-Sufficiency (%) to see which categories need expansion.
- Check Protein Self-Sufficiency (%) from eggs and dairy to determine if you need more laying hens or dairy does.
- Review Overall Self-Sufficiency (%) as a weighted composite across all food categories.
- Use Calorie Sufficiency (%) to understand whether your homestead is producing enough caloric energy to meaningfully reduce grocery dependence.
How the result changes with Family Size
| Family Size | Overall Self-Sufficiency | Calorie Sufficiency |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | 100% | 90.1% |
| 3 | 100% | 60% |
| 6 | 86.1% | 30% |
| 10 | 59.6% | 18% |
What each input means
- Family Size
- Number of people to feed.
- Garden Space
- Total productive garden area (200 sq ft per person minimum for some veggies).
- Fruit Trees
- Number of mature fruit-bearing trees.
- Egg-Laying Hens
- Number of hens for egg production.
- Dairy Animals
- Number of milking goats or cows.
What each result means
- Vegetable Self-Sufficiency
- Percentage of vegetable needs met by your garden.
- Fruit Self-Sufficiency
- Percentage of fruit needs met by your trees.
- Protein Self-Sufficiency
- Percentage of protein needs met by eggs and dairy.
- Overall Self-Sufficiency
- Weighted overall food self-sufficiency score.
- Calorie Sufficiency
- Percentage of caloric needs produced on your homestead.
How this is calculated
Worked example, using the default values
- Identify Input Parameters4 parametersFamily Size = 4, Garden Space = 2000, Fruit Trees = 8, Egg-Laying Hens = 6 = 5 input(s) provided
- Calculate Overall Self-SufficiencyOverall Self-Sufficiency99.1 = 99.1%
- Calculate Calorie SufficiencyCalorie Sufficiency45 = 45%
- Calculate Vegetable Self-SufficiencyVegetable Self-Sufficiency100 = 100%
- Calculate Fruit Self-SufficiencyFruit Self-Sufficiency100 = 100%
Engine last updated . Checked against 2 independently-derived tests — how we verify calculators. Built by Paul Gunder, a software engineer, not a licensed financial, medical, or legal professional.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why does Overall Self-Sufficiency weight protein and vegetables at 40% each but fruit at only 20%?
The calculator treats vegetables and protein (eggs plus dairy) as the two pillars of a self-sufficient diet, each contributing 40% to the overall score, while fruit is weighted lightly at 20% as more of a dietary supplement than a core caloric or nutritional need. This weighting is fixed regardless of your actual inputs — it always applies to whatever vegetable, fruit, and protein percentages you calculate.
Why can Calorie Sufficiency show a very different number than Overall Self-Sufficiency?
The two scores are computed completely independently. Overall Self-Sufficiency is a weighted blend of three capped percentages (vegetable, fruit, protein) based on pounds of food against nutritional targets, while Calorie Sufficiency compares total calories from all four sources (garden, fruit, eggs, dairy) against a flat 2,000-calorie-per-person-per-day budget. A homestead heavy on calorie-dense dairy but light on protein-per-pound could score higher on calories than on the weighted protein/vegetable/fruit blend, or vice versa.
Why are the individual percentages (vegetable, fruit, protein) capped at 100%?
Each category's percentage is clamped at 100% individually, so overproducing in one area — say, doubling your egg output — can't spill over to compensate for a shortfall in another category like vegetables. This keeps each score meaningful as 'percentage of that specific need met' rather than allowing surplus production to mask a real gap elsewhere.
How does the calculator convert goat or cow milk into protein and calories?
Dairy protein is computed as annual milk volume (365 days × 8 lbs/day per animal) multiplied by a 3.4% protein-content factor, while dairy calories use the same annual milk volume multiplied by roughly 290 calories per pound. Both figures scale linearly with the number of dairy animals you enter, so doubling your herd doubles both the protein and calorie contribution from dairy.
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