Advocacy and policy
NSHA speaks for Subsisters before local, state, and federal bodies. Its aim is zoning, water, land-use, and food rules that let households provide for themselves without penalty.
Why it mattersNational Subsistence and Homesteading Association
A national resource for subsistence and homesteading
NSHA holds that a household providing most of what it needs, in common cause with other households that do the same, is the soundest way for most Americans to live. It was ordinary life a century ago. NSHA works to make it attainable again through education, land, funding, and a decentralized network of Subsisters.
About NSHA
What NSHA does
The National Subsistence and Homesteading Association exists to make subsistence and homesteading lifestyles understandable, attainable, and sustainable for ordinary Americans. NSHA advocates for the people who grow, raise, preserve, and build for themselves, and works to remove the barriers of land, knowledge, and money that keep others from joining them.
NSHA welcomes every step toward self-provision, from a first garden bed onward. Its purpose, though, is larger than encouraging a pastime. The association holds that near-full subsistence is the optimal way of life for the majority of Americans: a household that produces most of what it needs and meets the rest through exchange with other subsisting households, next door or across the country. That arrangement was common and unremarkable a century ago. NSHA treats it as a destination to be reached in steps, not a hobby to be kept on the side.
Education and apprenticeship
NSHA is preparing plain-language guides and will host hands-on workshops. A planned apprenticeship program will place learners on working operations so skills pass directly from one Subsister to the next.
Open the learning libraryLand and a model operation
NSHA plans to acquire property and run a working subsistence operation. The site will serve as a school, a demonstration farm, and proof that the model works.
About the model operationFunding and grants navigation
NSHA will help Subsisters find and apply for existing grant and loan programs. It will also pursue funding as an organization and plans to pass a portion of it through to local nodes (small, self-organizing Subsister groups) and individual projects.
Funding and grantsLearn
What is subsistence? What is homesteading?
Two related ideas, one destination: a household that meets its own needs with its own hands, its own land, and its community.
What is subsistence?
Subsistence means a household producing what it needs to live: food, water, heat, shelter, and everyday goods. In full form, the household supplies nearly all of this itself and obtains the rest by exchange with other subsisting households, near or far. That is the destination. A family that grows half its vegetables, keeps a few laying hens, and heats with wood it cut itself is on the way there, and so is a household that puts up a season of produce from a shared garden plot. NSHA counts every one of those steps as subsistence practice, and holds that the destination, not the first step, is the point.
Subsistence is not the same as living “off the grid,” and it is not a rejection of modern life or of other people. It has always depended on neighbors, and NSHA encourages reliance on other Subsisters as part of the model rather than a departure from it. Many practitioners hold jobs and use modern tools while they move toward the destination. Subsistence is also different from farming as a business, where the goal is to sell a crop at a profit. The goal of subsistence is to meet your own needs first, buy only what you must, and build a margin of safety that no supply chain or paycheck can take away.
Subsistence
A household producing nearly all of what it needs and meeting the rest through exchange with other subsisting households.
What is homesteading?
Homesteading is the practice of organizing home life around subsistence. It brings together growing food, keeping animals, preserving the harvest, making and repairing things, and caring for land and water. Historically the word referred to settling and working a parcel of land. Today it describes a way of living more than a piece of property.
Homesteading happens at many scales. An apartment resident who grows herbs on a balcony, ferments vegetables, and mends clothing is homesteading. So is a suburban family that replaces a lawn with raised beds and a few fruit trees. So is a household on rural acreage with a barn, a woodlot, and livestock. The scale changes. The habits do not. NSHA’s work is to help any household that wants to move up that scale do so.
Homestead
A home, at any scale, where the household produces food and meets other needs through its own labor.
Who Subsisters are
Who is a Subsister?
A Subsister is a member of the National Subsistence and Homesteading Association. Subsisters are at every stage, from those planting a first tomato to those stewarding working land. What unites them is a shared commitment: to move their own household toward providing for itself, and to stand ready to help other households do the same. Self-reliance and mutual support are not opposites. A Subsister practices both, and understands that reliance on other Subsisters, whether down the road or in another state, is how subsistence has always worked.
Four principles
- Produce what you can. Buy what you must. Move the line each year.
- Learn a skill, then teach it.
- Care for land and water as if you will hand them on.
- No household stands alone. Other Subsisters, near and far, are the safety net.
Common misconceptions
Myth
You need to own land to start.
Fact
Most subsistence skills can be learned in a rented apartment, a community garden plot, or a borrowed backyard.
Myth
Subsistence means going without.
Fact
Subsistence households eat better, not worse. The aim is to depend less on what must be bought, with modern tools and knowledge in hand, not to do without.
Myth
Subsistence means going it alone.
Fact
Subsistence has always depended on neighbors. NSHA encourages reliance on other Subsisters, next door or across the country, as part of the model.
Myth
You have to do it all at once.
Fact
Subsistence is a destination reached in steps. Most Subsisters move toward it over years, often while holding a job, trading a little more each season for a little less bought.
The public interest
Why it matters now
Four reasons a household’s ability to provide for itself is a public concern, not a private hobby.
Food security and resilience
Long supply chains are efficient but fragile. A household that can grow, store, and preserve part of its own food is less exposed when shelves are empty or prices climb.
Cost of living
Food, energy, and housing take a large share of household budgets. Every meal grown, every jar preserved, and every repair made at home is money that stays in the household.
Land access and the federal gap
The federal programs that once helped ordinary Americans settle and work land ended decades ago. Today's agricultural support is built mainly for commercial producers, so households that simply want to feed themselves have few doors to knock on. NSHA exists to open some.
Skills lost between generations
A century ago, gardening, canning, butchering, mending, and building were ordinary household skills, because daily life required them. Much of that knowledge was never written down, and it disappears when the people who hold it are gone.
Precedent
This is not a new idea. It is an American one.
For most of the nation’s history, a household that fed, housed, and supplied itself was the ordinary case, and the federal government treated that way of life as a public good worth land, money, and printed instruction. NSHA’s position rests on that record.
-
1862
The Homestead Act
Signed by President Lincoln, the Act offered 160 acres of public land to any adult who would live on it, improve it, and work it for five years. About 1.6 million homesteads were granted before the program closed, covering roughly 270 million acres, close to a tenth of the land area of the United States. The last claim was proved in Alaska in 1988.
Source: National Archives
-
1889
The Farmers’ Bulletins
The Department of Agriculture began publishing Farmers’ Bulletins: short, free, plain-language guides mailed to any household that asked. They taught Americans to garden, keep poultry, preserve food, and plan a small holding. By 1934 the series had passed 1,700 titles.
Source: National Agricultural Library
-
1920
The turning point
The 1920 census was the first in which more Americans lived in towns and cities than in the countryside. Even then, about three in ten Americans still lived on farms, and household production of food, fuel, and clothing remained ordinary in town and country alike.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau
-
1933
The Division of Subsistence Homesteads
In the depth of the Depression, Congress set aside $25 million under the National Industrial Recovery Act to build planned communities where families could combine part-time wage work with land enough to feed themselves. The Department of the Interior’s Division of Subsistence Homesteads started about three dozen such communities, beginning with Arthurdale, West Virginia. “Subsistence homestead” was, for a time, the language of federal policy.
Source: National Archives
-
1934
Farmers’ Bulletin No. 1733
The Department of Agriculture published Planning a Subsistence Homestead, a step-by-step guide for a working family to live on about one acre. It is featured below.
-
1942
Victory Gardens
During the Second World War the government asked households to grow their own vegetables so that commercial produce could go to the troops. By commonly cited wartime estimates, Americans planted some 20 million Victory Gardens, which supplied a substantial share of the fresh vegetables the country ate.
Source: National Agricultural Library
Featured document
Planning a Subsistence Homestead (1934)
Written by Walter W. Wilcox and published by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, this bulletin told an ordinary working family exactly how to live on a small piece of land: about one acre for a garden and poultry, two more if they wanted to keep a cow. It assumed that the head of the household held a job in town. In plain terms, it is the federal government’s own handbook for the way of life NSHA advocates.
“Many families with small incomes can lower their living costs by living on a small piece of land and growing their own food, and at the same time enjoy a greater quantity and variety of fresh and canned vegetables and fruit. Gardening and poultry raising on a small piece of land is about all an employed man and his family can care for by hand. About 1 acre of good land is enough for such purposes.”
The two plans below are reproduced from the bulletin. Each lays out a one-acre lot, 100 by 440 feet, with a house, a vegetable garden, small fruit, an orchard, and a poultry run, sized to feed a family of five. The bulletin judged this “all that a man who is employed elsewhere during the growing season can care for properly by hand with the help of his family.”
Images: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Farmers’ Bulletin No. 1733, via the National Agricultural Library’s Small Agriculture exhibit. Works of the United States government, in the public domain.
What NSHA takes from this record
A century ago, a household that produced most of what it consumed was not a curiosity. It was the common case, and public policy backed it with land, instruction, and planned communities. NSHA’s position is that the same arrangement, carried out with modern tools and knowledge and bound together by a decentralized network of Subsisters, remains the soundest way for most American households to live. The programs that once supported it have lapsed. NSHA exists to take up that work.
The Subsister pathway
From curious to established, in five steps
Each step builds on the one before. The destination is a household that provides nearly all of what it needs, and every step toward it can be taken where you already live.
-
Learn
Understand the basics before you spend money on tools or land.
- Reading a seed packet and a soil test
- Finding your growing zone (the climate band printed on seed packets) and average frost dates
- Keeping a simple garden journal
-
Grow something
Start small, bring in a real harvest, and learn from what fails.
- Container herbs and salad greens
- A single raised bed
- Composting kitchen scraps
-
Preserve and store
Carry a harvest past its season so it feeds you through the year.
- Water-bath canning of high-acid foods
- Freezing and dehydrating
- Setting up a cool, dark storage space
-
Expand and network
Add capacity and connect with people who can help.
- Keeping a small flock of laying hens
- Joining or forming a local Subsister node
- Trading surplus and labor with neighbors
-
Steward and mentor
Manage land for the long term and pass your knowledge on.
- Cover cropping or rotational grazing (moving livestock between pastures so each can recover)
- Hosting an apprentice
- Navigating land purchase, leases, and conservation easements
Self-education library
Learn to become a Subsister
Six self-education tracks, taken at your own pace. Each one begins with three plain-language topics.
All library material is free to read. No membership required.
Food production
How to grow vegetables, fruit, and staple crops at any scale, from containers to acreage.
Start here
Food preservation and storage
How to keep what you grow safe and edible for months.
Start here
Water and energy basics
How households collect, store, and use water and energy wisely.
Start here
Animal husbandry basics
How to keep small livestock responsibly and humanely.
Start here
Land, law, and finance
How to find, afford, and lawfully use land.
Start here
Community and mutual aid
How to build the relationships that make a household resilient.
Start here
Placeholder. The guides listed above are being written. Until the library is published, each guide link leads to this note.
Glossary
Fourteen terms to know
Words you will see on this site and hear at NSHA events.
- Subsistence
- A household producing nearly all of what it needs and meeting the rest through exchange with other subsisting households. Partial practice is a step toward it.
- Homestead
- A home, at any scale, where the household produces food and meets other needs through its own labor.
- Subsister
- A member of the National Subsistence and Homesteading Association, committed to self-reliance and mutual support.
- Node
- A small, local, self-organizing group of Subsisters (households, farms, or shared resources such as a seed library) that meets regularly and trades skills, tools, seed, and labor.
- Chapter
- The nodes of one region, working together. A chapter organizes regional events and carries the region's voice within the association.
- Sliding scale
- Dues set within a published range according to what a household can pay, so that cost is not the reason anyone stays out.
- Cover crop
- A crop planted to protect and improve soil between harvests rather than to eat or sell.
- Root cellar
- A cool, dark, humid storage space, often below ground, that keeps vegetables and fruit fresh for months without electricity.
- Mutual aid network
- A voluntary group whose members share labor, tools, knowledge, and surplus so that no household faces hardship alone.
- Apprenticeship
- A structured period of learning by working alongside an experienced practitioner on a functioning homestead.
- Cost-share
- A program that pays part of the cost of an approved project, such as a fence, a well, or a soil practice, while the landowner pays the rest.
- Conservation easement
- A voluntary legal agreement that permanently limits how a piece of land may be developed. The owner keeps the land and may receive payment or a tax benefit in return.
- Water rights
- The legal right to take and use water from a stream, well, or rainfall. The rules differ widely from state to state.
- Right-to-farm law
- A state or local law that protects ordinary farming activity from certain nuisance complaints and restrictions. What is protected varies by state.
Events
Upcoming events
Events will be organized by regional chapters, with virtual sessions open to Subsisters anywhere in the country. The first season is being planned.
Date TBD
In person
Regional Subsister Meetup
An informal gathering for current and prospective Subsisters to meet neighbors, trade seed and surplus, and hear what the regional chapter is working on.
Reserve a seat (registration link to come)
Date TBD
In person
Skills Workshop: Food Preservation
A hands-on session covering water-bath and pressure canning, fermentation, and dry storage, taught by experienced Subsisters with equipment provided.
Register for the workshop (registration link to come)
Date TBD
In person and online
Land and Financing Clinic
A working clinic on finding land, reading a listing, understanding easements and water rights (both explained in the glossary), and walking through the loan and grant programs that may apply to you.
Sign up for the clinic (registration link to come)
Date TBD
Virtual
Virtual Town Hall
An open meeting where NSHA leadership reports on advocacy work, answers questions, and takes input from Subsisters on priorities for the coming season.
Join the town hall (registration link to come)Placeholder. Dates, locations, and registration links will be published here when the first season of events is confirmed.
No event near you? Regional chapters will host most in-person events. If your area does not have a chapter, see the network section to learn how to start a node.
Membership
Become a Subsister
Membership supports NSHA's advocacy, education, and land programs, and connects you to the Subsister network. Dues have not been finalized. All tiers will use a sliding scale so cost is never the reason someone stays out.
Individual Subsister
Dues TBD Sliding scale · details to come
One person who is practicing, learning, or planning a subsistence or homesteading life, whether on acreage, in a suburb, or in an apartment.
- Recorded workshops and member discussion groups, in addition to the public learning library, which stays free to everyone.
- A listing in the Subsister member directory and an introduction to your local node.
- Reduced registration for in-person workshops and clinics.
- A vote in chapter and association matters.
Household
Dues TBD Sliding scale · details to come
Two or more people who live under one roof or work one homestead together, so that everyone in the household is a Subsister under one membership.
- Everything in the Individual tier, extended to every adult in the household.
- Priority consideration for apprenticeship placements and open days at the model operation (planned).
- Household listing in the seed, tool, and labor exchange.
- Eligibility to apply for node-level grants and cost-share projects, where a program pays part of a project’s cost (planned).
Organizational Supporter
Dues TBD Sliding scale · details to come
Established homesteads, farms, cooperatives, churches, community gardens, local businesses, and other groups that want to host or anchor a node.
- Recognition as an NSHA-affiliated node or supporting organization.
- Access to node operating guidance, templates, and (planned) insurance and legal resources.
- Ability to host NSHA workshops and clinics with association support.
- A seat in the annual chapter council, where organizational supporters and chapter representatives meet to set regional priorities (planned).
Placeholder. Membership forms will open when dues are finalized. Until then, the buttons above lead to this note.
Membership is not required to learn.
The NSHA learning library, self-study paths, and public workshops are open to everyone. Start there, and join when you are ready.
The network
A decentralized subsistence support network
A decentralized network has no headquarters that everything depends on. It is made of many small, local groups, called nodes, that operate on their own and cooperate with one another. Each node knows its own soil, climate, laws, and neighbors. The nodes of one region together form a chapter, which organizes regional events and carries the region's voice within the association. Skills pass directly from one Subsister to the next. Seed, tools, and labor move between households without waiting on permission from anyone far away.
\1\nDistance is not a barrier. A Subsister in one state can mentor, trade seed with, or buy surplus from a Subsister in another, and nodes are encouraged to link with nodes far away as readily as with the one in the next county. Relying on other subsisting households, near or far, is not a compromise of self-reliance. It is the form self-reliance has always taken.
Each node is a household, farm, mentor, or shared resource. Darker nodes are anchor sites: farms and households with room to host apprentices. Nodes support one another directly. There is no headquarters that can fail.
How a node works
-
Gather
A small group of Subsisters in one area agrees to meet on a regular schedule, in person or by call.
-
Inventory
The node lists what its members have and what they need: skills, tools, seed, land, storage, labor, and time.
-
Exchange
Members trade, lend, teach, and work alongside one another according to the inventory, using simple agreements the node sets for itself.
-
Connect
The node registers in the NSHA directory, reports what it is learning, and draws on other nodes and the association when it needs more than it has.
How to start or join a node
-
Look up the directory.
Once published, the NSHA node directory will list existing nodes by area, each with a coordinator to contact.
Search the node directory (link to come) -
Start one if none exists.
Gather a few interested households, read the node starter guide, and register the node with NSHA.
Read the node starter guide (link to come) -
Ask for a hand.
If you are unsure where to begin, request a call with a regional chapter volunteer who can walk you through the first steps.
Request a call (link to come)
Placeholder. The node directory, the starter guide, and the request-a-call form are in preparation and will be linked here.
NSHA's role. NSHA supports the network with shared standards, a public node directory (in preparation), connection to grants and funding passthrough (planned), and insurance and legal guidance (planned), while leaving day-to-day decisions with each node.
Land and apprenticeship
Land and the model operation
NSHA plans to acquire property and operate a working subsistence homestead on it. The operation will produce food and materials for the people who work it, and it will also serve as a school. Apprentices will live and work on site for a season under experienced Subsisters. Visitors will be able to see raised beds, orchards, livestock, a root cellar, water systems, and energy systems in daily use. The goal is a place that proves the model works and sends trained Subsisters home to start their own.
Status: Property search and fundraising in progress. Location and timeline TBD.
Planned outcomes
Apprenticeships
Season-long, hands-on placements for Subsisters who want to learn by doing, with room and board on site and a clear curriculum.
Demonstration plots
Side-by-side plots and systems that show methods, costs, and yields honestly, so visitors can judge what will work at home.
Open days
Regular public days when anyone can walk the operation, ask questions, and take part in a task.
Funding and grants
Funding and grants
Land, tools, livestock, and time all cost money, and the lack of it is one of the most common reasons a household does not start.
Public programs exist that can help, but they are scattered across agencies, written in technical language, and rarely explained to the people who need them most. NSHA treats funding as a core program, not an afterthought. NSHA will pursue grants as an organization, help individual Subsisters find and apply for what already exists, and raise donations so that the work does not depend on any single source.
Grants NSHA pursues and passes through
NSHA will apply for foundation, agricultural, conservation, and community development grants at the organizational level. A portion of funds raised is planned to pass through to regional nodes and to individual Subsister projects through a simple application process. Details will be published as funding is secured.
Passthrough grants (details to come)Navigating existing federal and state programs
Several public programs may be relevant to Subsisters, depending on individual circumstances. They are listed below. NSHA is preparing plain-language guides to these programs and plans to host land and financing clinics to help Subsisters work through applications.
Read the program guides (link to come)Donations and sponsorships
Gifts from individuals, businesses, and foundations will fund NSHA's advocacy, education, and land programs. Sponsors may support a specific workshop, clinic, or apprenticeship. Details on how to give will be posted once the association's nonprofit status is finalized.
Support NSHA (giving page to come)Placeholder. The passthrough program details, program guides, and giving page will be linked here once each is finalized.
Programs to know
Named in general terms only. Eligibility and terms are set by each agency; follow the agency links for current details.
- The USDA Farm Service Agency administers loan programs for farm ownership and operating costs, including options intended for beginning farmers. fsa.usda.gov
- The USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service runs conservation programs, such as the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, that can support soil, water, and habitat practices on working land. nrcs.usda.gov
- The Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program, administered through USDA, funds organizations that provide education, training, and technical assistance to new farmers. Individuals benefit by taking part in funded programs rather than applying directly. usda.gov
- Grants.gov is the central listing of federal grant opportunities. grants.gov
- Many states and counties also run cost-share programs, which pay part of a project’s cost, and other small-farm programs. Ask your local node what applies where you live.
NSHA provides information and assistance only. NSHA does not administer federal programs. Eligibility and terms are set by each agency, and NSHA does not guarantee eligibility for, or award of, any grant, loan, or program.
Get involved
Get started
Membership, events, and the network are open to households at any scale, from a windowsill to acreage. The destination is the same for all of them.