But it is one of the more compelling utopian food visions, whether presented through the lens of Vasili's Garden's namesake's irrepressible prejudice towards growing nothing but edible plants in your own backyard or through "edible city" projects around the world. It seems to work on a small scale.

How much food can be grown in a home garden? The Vasili Effect.

According to the mail-order group for subversive gardeners, Digger's Club (PDF), 40 square metres of average Aussie backyard can yield 472 kilos of mixed heirloom-variety vegetables each year. This is enough to feed the average family of four Australians a varied diet of plant matter, throughout each passing season.

It looks eminently achievable to dig up the average lawn of the suburban quarter acre block, sow it year round with seeds, compost the kitchen scraps and recycle your waste water. This plan (PDF) even includes a frog pond, if you're in need of an extra source of protein for that permaculture cred; and also concedes the backyard to culturally important barbecue area, space to kick a football and park the car.

There are of course many more costs to bear apart from the psychological scars of frog-hunting: the time needed to be spent tending to the garden; preserving and storing the vegetables each season; and the ability to stomach the blander vegetables, day in and day out, at the grim end of winter. You'll eat buckets of soup to empty your root cellar. You'll miss the taste of ripe bananas (if they still exist).

Can it be expanded to whole cities?

Southeast False Creek in Vancouver is attempting to find out. The site for the 2010 Winter Olympic Village has been designed with sustainable urban agriculture in mind. Their objective is to increase the capacity of the whole downtown neighbourhood to grow food, both private properties and in public parks, and not limit themselves to suburban backyard. According to their strategy, their aims for the physical capacity of the Southeast False Creek neighbourhood include:

Create public community gardens in the Parks, public open space (including some boulevards in street rights-of-way) and school grounds...

Design private (backyard) and semi-private (strata) gardens at grade for maximum solar access and ensure soil is free from contamination and of a high quality for agriculture;

Develop the podiums and rooftops of buildings (especially concrete buildings) in such a way as to support greenhouses and/or rooftop gardens capable of supporting the growing of food;

Provide balconies for as many units as possible, especially on the east, south and west face of buildings; and

Create food gardens for students and the surrounding community on school grounds...

...alongside social and political measures to support growing food all within downtown Vancouver.

The problems faced in an urban area are tougher: contaminated soil, lack of light and water; not to mention the "free rider effect" of locals stealing whatever food they need without contributing to the common good. With the cost of food rising, will we need to defend our own gardens?