"Andrew Stephenson" wrote in message
...
Thank you, everybody, for your prompt and helpful responses. It
looks like my initial (NB wild) guesstimate of 30,000 people must
be cut back to 10,000 tops -- good thing I thought to check. As
round numbers always sound fake (weird, really), let's say 9,403.

The point about favouring legumes and rice is worth knowing; but
I've got to allow my characters to have livestock, as a source of
leather at least. I had already considered having them clearing
more brownfield land for crops, so that's definitely on (maybe an
extra 100 hectares so far). Odd corners (totalling around 50 Ha)
have trees growing fruit and useful stuff. Scrap wood, metal and
such are plentiful. It all (well, most of it) makes sense, given
the situation.

Otherwise, it's a lean time all round, with the added plot point
that land is steadily becoming impoverished and production will
continue to fall -- likely, yes? (And I just realised salination
is a likely menace. Zot... Well, it _is_ fiction; I can mention
it as another impending problem.)

In farming a hail storm at just before harvest in population such as yours
that is living hand to mouth is catastrophe of immense proportion as it any
thing that effects the crops look up 'year without a summer' on google. Your
village need food storage.

Goats and sheep are probably your best livestock because they can be grown
on food that human can't use. Goats eat leafy plants and sheep eat grass for
the most part. They are also a handy size for killing. Chickens will fit in
will eat a lot of insects and convert rice to high quality protein as
efficiently as you can grow soy beans on rice land. If you collect the
manure every day they probably make as much fertilizer as well.

Gordon