[bluGill]

It is designed by researchers who have been studying this for a while. At least for the near term the upkeep is worth it because people who previously no had prospects can now grow enough food to live on. You have to keep it up, but keeping it up means you can eat so the constant upkeep shouldn't be a problem so long as you are healthy. (culture or something is needed to deal with those who because of age or injury are not able to keep it up)

The real question is if in 50 years - as the current people use the fact that they have food and some extra invest in education for their kids, and so the kids move away to better city jobs. Those that remain likely love agriculture, but will be looking for ways use tractors to do the hard jobs. This doesn't seem to scale to large tractor operations. Those researchers thus need to look ahead to what follows this in 50 years.