| abstract | - The primary method of providing food for settlements, corn and mutated cabbage are the primary crops cultivated in New California. They enable settlements to become self sufficent instead of relying on caravan deliveries. Another important element is livestock herding, where brahmin are most popular due to their hardy nature and extreme usability. In Fallout, the Hub is the biggest source of food in the region, with crop fields and brahmin pens surrounding the city. Along with water, it's one of their main exports. Smaller settlements, like Junktown or Adytum are partially independent, having livestock and fields of their own (or even hydroponic farms), but still relying on the Hub for supplies. The Brotherhood of Steel completely relies on food and water caravans to survive. Only Shady Sands is fully independent. In Fallout 2, the Hub, as part of the NCR, is the biggest exporter of livestock in the region, with their brahmin herds being a highly sought good. Regular cattle drives cross the wastelands, expanding its control northwards. Two other cities also provide large amounts of food to the wastelands, namely Modoc (though it has fallen on hard times by 2241) and San Francisco (fish). Smaller cities have small scale agriculture (like Klamath or Gecko), gaining a degree of independence from food deliveries. Only Vault City can be seen as totally self-sufficient in this regard, as only it has reliable food synthesizers dating to pre-War days. In Fallout 3, despite 200 years having passed, no notable efforts to establish any sort of agriculture are present, apart from hydroponic farms on the Rivet City carrier and small brahmin ranches in many of the settlements. Moira Brown makes a reference to a "radiated mockery of agriculture" existing in the wasteland, an obvious reference to the mutfruit, but no fruit bearing mutfruit plants are ever seen. In Fallout: New Vegas, the Mojave Wasteland bustles with various attempts at creating a stable agriculture. Bighorners and brahmins are a popular choice for livestock, while maize and other hardy plants are cultivated in the arid climate by dedicated farmers. The NCR in particular devotes a lot of effort into creating a stable source of food, with the Thaler Act's NCR Sharecropper Farms and OSI's research into food production, as it projects famine in the Republic in about ten years or so.
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