Ok, I've had this question posed to me before. And I'll admit in the book it's not quite clear but in the movie its even more confusing. Everyone is hungry yet nobody in the Seam is growing food in their yards
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Poor soil quality, lack of time to tend a garden and build compost, lack of space, and/or seeds unavailable or expensive? They probably do grow what they can get their hands on, but time, space, and quality issues likely limit the yield. Larger, more efficient collective gardens were probably not allowed as they'd signal too much self-sufficience. When people who are systematically exploited and oppressed in exchange for nothing more than subsistence food become self-sufficient, that can get dangerous for the folks on top.
I agree. Plus, I never have pictured the people having large enough pieces of land to really grow their own food. They would probably try to grow what they could, but a few hardy herbs and plants aren't going to keep you fed.
We know Katniss and her family had access to mint, a small, hardy herb, and things like that, and the merchants had gardens, but yeah, that won't be enough to sustain a family.
Maybe the government holds the patents on all the seeds and, like some big companies today, only sells the ones that don't produce viable seed in the next generation. If you can't save your seeds from one year to the next, you have to purchase them every year, and it might be prohibitively expensive.
Of course, I don't know much about Appalachia in particular, but I might also suggest that rocky, mountainous terrain isn't really best suited for cultivation. There's a reason mining instead of farming is big there, and the mere existance of coal probably doesn't sum it up.
It's definitely possible to grow a small garden in Appalachia and indeed, until relatively recently almost every house had a family garden. The rocky terrain is generally unsuitable for large scale plantation-style farming, but most people in Appalachia live in valleys or on flat places on hilltops. You don't really need that much land for a small family garden. Heck, you can grow some tomatoes in flowerpots or propped up beside a house.
I figured that the Capitol was preventing them from growing food. Just like they wouldn't let anyone hunt in the woods, the controlled how much food was grown and by whom to make certain that those in the Districts would remain dependent on buying food.
I just assumed that people in the Seam did not have enough land to grow food. Another thing to keep in mind is that it's a pretty industrialized district/world, right? Katniss mentions that people in D12 are afraid of the woods beyond the Meadow, which is partly because of predators but also because people are afraid of what they don't know (She so has this criticism of Peeta). In the first games it seems like only herself, Rue and Thresh have enough knowledge of plants to be able to feed themselves adequately. I think people in Panem just aren't familiar enough with plants and gardening for the thought to even occur to themselves. Poor people who live in our world could also start gardens in order to supplement the food they buy - but for most poor city dwellers, I bet the thought doesn't even occur to them cause it's such an alien idea.
That's what I assumed in the book. That the houses in the Seam were very close together, but in the film there's all this extra land between the homes that's not being used. The vide in the film is more rural than urban.
In the book, I did wonder why they didn't try to annex the woods and push the wild animals further back in the hopes of gaining more land to grow food, or even why each district was specialized for one product. Wouldn't it make more sense to try to grow food wherever there was a little extra land? But I really think this has to do with politics. The Capitol really isn't interesting in feeding people, just themselves so they don't have to think these ways. They just think about what's easiest for them and that becomes policy.
I meant, that I wondered why the powers that be didn't try to annex the woods. But for the answer to that see my previous post ;-) The Capitol really isn't interesting in feeding people.
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In the book I sort of pictured the houses in the Seam being so tight together that there were no yards.
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Of course, I don't know much about Appalachia in particular, but I might also suggest that rocky, mountainous terrain isn't really best suited for cultivation. There's a reason mining instead of farming is big there, and the mere existance of coal probably doesn't sum it up.
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Another thing to keep in mind is that it's a pretty industrialized district/world, right? Katniss mentions that people in D12 are afraid of the woods beyond the Meadow, which is partly because of predators but also because people are afraid of what they don't know (She so has this criticism of Peeta). In the first games it seems like only herself, Rue and Thresh have enough knowledge of plants to be able to feed themselves adequately. I think people in Panem just aren't familiar enough with plants and gardening for the thought to even occur to themselves.
Poor people who live in our world could also start gardens in order to supplement the food they buy - but for most poor city dwellers, I bet the thought doesn't even occur to them cause it's such an alien idea.
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In the book, I did wonder why they didn't try to annex the woods and push the wild animals further back in the hopes of gaining more land to grow food, or even why each district was specialized for one product. Wouldn't it make more sense to try to grow food wherever there was a little extra land? But I really think this has to do with politics. The Capitol really isn't interesting in feeding people, just themselves so they don't have to think these ways. They just think about what's easiest for them and that becomes policy.
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