This reminds me of a piece of advice from Brian Fox (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Fox) which is that anyone who wants freedom should get enough jobs as waiters to be confident that you can do it at need.
The reason is very simple. If you are in a strange place in desperate circumstances, an experienced waiter finds it fairly easy to get a job. And very importantly, you get to eat on your first day in the job. This makes it a very valuable fallback to have.
If you're a waiter in a decent restaurant, the food will also be pretty good. Furthermore once your circumstances improve, it is a job that you can leave easily.
(Note that Brian Fox's circumstances have definitely improved. He had a successful startup back in the mid-90s.)
It's interesting that this also seems to have factored into Richard Stallman's philosophy. Since he considered working on closed software unethical, and noted that he could always survive as a waiter, he felt he couldn't justify working on closed software based on the excuse that it was necessary for financial reasons.
This is not advice for survivalists. It is advice for people who want to lead an interesting life. In his case he wanted the freedom to travel and work on free software back in the 80s. His skills as a waiter provided a safety net that gave him the freedom to do that.
Growing your own crops would be an absurdly horrible strategy. Imagine that you're in a strange city and your wallet was just stolen. You have just a few days of reserve cash. Would you at this point prefer the fallback plan of, "Plant these seeds, wait for them to grow" or "Get a job as a waiter, eat immediately"?
The reason is very simple. If you are in a strange place in desperate circumstances, an experienced waiter finds it fairly easy to get a job. And very importantly, you get to eat on your first day in the job. This makes it a very valuable fallback to have.
If you're a waiter in a decent restaurant, the food will also be pretty good. Furthermore once your circumstances improve, it is a job that you can leave easily.
(Note that Brian Fox's circumstances have definitely improved. He had a successful startup back in the mid-90s.)