http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Hilltop_farm_ruins_terminal_entries

This small community living in a small pre-war house had an irrigation system and what sounded like excellent farming for NOT long after the war. Bethesda just [censored] up.

EDIT: Radiation doesn't work differently in all cases, see Vault City where radioactive water is causing birth defects and chromosomal damage.

A: Building still stand in Fallout, Fallout 2 but they are burned out shells with little in the them. People did build new ones and fixed up some older pre-war ones.

B: Plants would still grow. They grow in New Vegas with the Radiation. There should not be that much Radiation 200 years after the great war. In the West, the radiation was pretty much gone just 84 years after great war. Fallout and Fallout 2 show alot of farming of plants and animals.

C: No agriculture would produce alot of dead people. No one in their right mind would live in a place with no food. Two things that determine human settlement: 1:water and 2: Ability to get food.

D: Raiders would have nothing to raid for there should be know one there.

E: Water should not have been Radioactive in the first place. Even still it did not stop people from drinking it. If people can drink it and live a plant can grow in it just fine.

The Enclave: Vault Citie's water was Radioacive because of the Gecko Nuclear Plant. There is a big quest in Fallout 2.

Still an example of the realistic radiation and not just, "It makes everything giant!"

Agreed. There is also the Glow in Fallout One

I cant remember if i read it in the fallout bible, or elsewhere but it said something about the F.E.V causing problems such as sterilising land and im positive i read this in the fallout bible, it said that since there was no cold war that nuclear weapons technology didnt progress like it did because of the cold war missile gap or bomb gap, and that nuclear weapons technology was basically that of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs as seen by the large bombs in the craters in fo 3 and new vegas, so if that was the case then most of the weapons delivery systems would have been bombers since S.A.C and their bombers were basically the backbone of the delivery systems during the 50's. So if you think that bombs of that sort of yield wouldnt have caused that sort of destruction worldwide that they so eloquently explain in fo1 and also wouldnt have left the soils as barren after the time lapsed since the detonation.

Past civilisations had to learn for the first time about plumbing, building techniques, irrigation, agriculture,and animal husbandry yet in a place were there are books and still enough educated people they cant put 2 and 2 together ,these people must have been afflicted by stupidity by the F.E.V because honestly there is no reason why they couldnt set up farms only exception would have been seeds, there would have been a massive lack of seeds to grow food which is why they made seed banks and put them underground in shelters not only because of the extinction rate of plants but it was created specifically in case of a nuclear war and that there would be a supply of seeds to start farming again and seeds would be something that would be valued and be basically priceless, i have no idea whether or not the US has a seed bank i know there are a few in Europe, and i have no idea whether or not they stored seeds in the vaults .

I have no idea how much farmland and what distance it is from DC but if there was a nuclear winter it would have killed a huge amount of plant life off, weeds would be the sort of plant that would be the first to appear first, there is an excellent documentary about how the world would return to life after a nuclear war, i saw it wayyyyyyyyy to many years ago and wish i could remember what it was called but it went through what sort of plant and animal life that would survive, but since we know that the F.E.V mutated animals and that mole rats are edible and there are brahmin in new vegas theres a molerat farm, if they didnt have much in the way seeds then for vegetable matter then meat would have become the staple diet but they still needed to grow feed for the cattle since basically they are mostly herbivores.

I live in a regional area surrounded by farms, and spent alot of time as a child on a farm, and spent to much time listening to whining farmers, its to hot, its to cold its to dry its to wet, the planets arent in the correct alignment, crops are hard to grow without good soil and good conditions for growth, i cant see why they dont have hydroponics at least its in more controlled conditions and not affected by the elements and insect infestations since pesticides wouldnt be readily available nor im sure would be fertilisers, but you could produce soils over time by composting rotting vegetable matter and using brahmin waste, but basically seeds would be the biggest problems so i could see what sort of difficulty it would be without and decent seed supply, and again i have no idea where the closest agriculture areas are near DC.

Bethesda didn't want to program huge areas of farms and farm animals that the player would derive no enjoyment from? Instead, they opted to direct those resources towards creating areas that would more directly engage the player.

Hell, even New Vegas has like a 20x20 farm to support the entire region. Farms aren't exciting, and personally, if it comes down to explaining how the region's fed via terminal/dialogue and creating an actual interesting game area with the resources it would've taken to create that farm, I can support that.

I'd still like an explanation, but I don't need to be staring realistically-sized farms in the face to be satisfied.

I thought all you gamesas fans always like to harp on and on about there " believable worlds". Hell even Oblivion had them!

There are brahmin in Megaton as well, and most aid shops will sell brahmin steaks. Just because the gameplay doesn't show a large amount of brahmin doesn't mean that they aren't there (Gameplay and story segregation). Yes there is a lot of water in DC, I wasn't arguing that. For whatever reason though the water is much more polluted or irradiated than out west, making large scale farming difficult at best. The question isn't "why is there no farming in DC?" It's "why is the water so much worse?"

Farming also takes more than water, you need good soil to do it. The DC area was a city, and it was probably much more polluted than the relatively rural deserts out west. The only plants in the area are grasses and shrubs, it can't even support trees anymore. There are also ruined buildings and large rocks everywhere that would need to be cleared out to farm, not to mention the super mutant threat. If you're going to start farming you'd be better off finding some better land outside of the city. Most of people in the DC ruins seemed to be scavengers who aren't interested in large scale settlements anyway; for example Megaton was created by people who wanted to camp outside Vault 101 so they could get something out of it eventually.

If you saw the nukes on Liberty Prime's back, that would probably be the size of the Average Nuclear bomb in the fallout universe

If you saw the nukes on Liberty Prime's back, that would probably be the size of the Average Nuclear bomb in the fallout universe

Pittsburgh wasnt actually hit that badly, the irradiated water from other towns killed people and caused genetic defects and point lookout had a giant radioactive dump that probably mutated the Swampfolk and animals. Also it created the glowing ones and other ghouls near that POW camp fro chinese prisoners