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Self-sufficiency refers to the state of not requiring any outside aid, support, or (in hardline cases) interaction, for survival; it is therefore a type of extreme personal autonomy.Self-sufficiency is usually applied to varieties of sustainable living in which nothing is consumed outside of what is produced by the self-sufficient individuals. Examples of attempts at self-sufficiency in North America include voluntary simplicity, Luddism, homesteading, survivalism, and the Back to the land movement.
Practices that enable or aid self-sufficiency include autonomous building, permaculture, sustainable agriculture, and renewable energy.
The existence of an effectively closed system makes self-sufficiency a necessity for any form of space colonization. An extreme experimental example of self-sufficiency could therefore be said to be the Biosphere 2 project.
The term is also applied to more limited forms of self-sufficiency, for example growing one's own food or becoming economically independent of state subsidies or (in the case of larger political entities) foreign aidForeign aid or international aid is when one country helps another country through some form of donation. Usually this refers to helping out a country that has a special need caused by poverty, underdevelopment, natural disasters, armed conflicts, etc..
