This topic has been debated endlessly on other forums for years.  There are scenarios where the family has a better chance than being part of a group.  Conversely, it is possible to envision situations where this isn't true. There is no simple answer.

Let me cut to the chase:  Ultimately, it comes down to two choices.  First, being so far out no one can make it or find you and being self-sufficient.  Second, being willing to kill people (men, women and children, LEO's, military, anyone) because they can reach your location and destroy your chances for survival.  This could be either a group or individual action.

Here's a link to a very, very long fictional story of what happens after an EMP.  It has lots of information on weapons and tactics and how people might respond in a crisis.

http://www.giltweasel.com/stuff/LigthsOut-Current.pdf

I assume the above link still works.

Todd

You ask, "What quality would the survivors have that allowed them to survive?"  You assert:
"One cannot just say "survivors" without some explanation of why these particular people survived."

Why cannot one just say that?  After all, it is the whole heart of the tautological circle that is Darwinism itself!

Question:  Who survives?
Darwinian answer:  The fittest.
Question:  What makes them the fittest?
Darwinian answer:  They survived.

As we know, in Darwinian speak, there is no one quality that assists survival.  Speed?  Then how can one explain the existence of both cheetahs and turtles?
Size?  The how can one explain both the existence of gnats and elephants?
Aggressiveness?  Then how can the world contain both sheep and lion?
One or the other should have won out!

This is very comparable to the human individual in relation to the larger world.  There is no proof that either aggressiveness or pacifist tendencies have an advantage.  The Vikings were aggressive raiders, and faired well in certain times and places, but the ostensibly unarmed early Christian monasteries often outlasted many more aggressive groups, through self reliance, preservation of education, careful planning of allegiances, and a stern sense of purpose.

So much has already been said on the complexities of trying to visualize "survival scenarios" that I will leave this to others, but I would like for people to entertain one or two interesting thoughts:

*How does proximity to American military establishments possibly alter the security/civil order situation in a given area?  Would one be safer near a large military base like Fort Hood TX or Fort Knox KY (just to name a couple of the hundreds out there) so that they could assume order would be maintained by the well armed military, or would one fear becoming a serf to a well armed military warlord type local establishment?

*How would the effect of locally available energy change conditions?  For example, there are areas of the U.S. that still have a great deal of local natural gas and or coal.  These can be converted in various ways to usable power once peoples backs are against the wall.  The photos of ancient buses with giant natural gas balloons on the roof in third world countries are an amusing example of the inventiveness people are capable of.  In WWII, people actually managed to run cars and trucks on wood smoke  (Mother Earth News Magazine had articles in the 1970's showing how it can be done), and coal can be used in much the same way (it ain't clean, but your local area may not have an EPA enforcement office after the big S hits the fan!)

*Seafood and catfish-Will coastal areas and wetlands (Mississippi, Tennessee, Missouri and Ohio River areas) have a different situation due to fish production in relation to food?  If we assume that those cargo planes and big refrigerated trucks will no longer be carrying the coastal region's seafood inland so easily, will the coastal areas be benefited by at least a sustainable amount of seafood for the coastal locals?  What about fresh water fish?  The Midwest and South in the U.S. are abundent with lakes, rivers, and even catfish farms.  

Oh, and on those mass hoards of wandering bandits...given that the average age of the country is now getting somewhere between Geritol and Scoota' Round age, how easily is it going to be for the silver haired ladies and gents to walk miles into the country to conduct pillaging raids on the fearless TOD posters organic rutabagas (or will they use those little scooters they ride in the mall to pillage miles into the country?  
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As I sit writing this, I am listening to music.  Beethoven's Leonora Overture No. 3.....what magnificant souring passages!  The great push of human desire, the fearless facing of human destiny in pure sound, the driving desire for MORE, for ACTION, for HISTORY MAKING WRIT LARGE.  Some have said that in Beethoven, one can hear everything that is so right and so grand, and alas, so foreboding and so isolating in the Western soul.....the Sturn und Drang, the pure stress and strain on the Earth and the Human that comes with the whole Western way....but, nonetheless, the HUMAN FAITH in the human WILL is so present in Beethoven, Hyden, Mozart...all alive on the Earth at the same time in the early 19th century....a time of war, epidemic cholera, political unrest, social inequality and instability, an age at the front, at the edge of the Industral Wave that ripped the European culture to peices, destroying long standing powers, throwing out long held belief about human destiny, and completely wiping away a culture that had been CENTURIES in the making.  

How could humans hope to have full and meaningful lives after such a catastrophic collapse of ALL that meant anything?  Would they not be reduced to animals, grubbing about for food, with the loss of the the guiding order of the nobility?  Would they not become lustful beasts able to construct no great culture, but only interested in satisfying their animal desires without the guiding and ruling hand of the clergy?  Who would organize commerce, alliences and diplomacy without the kings and dukes, the only ones who knew how it was done?  What kind of world was coming?

Yet to this day, we listen to Beethoven, and we hear the thunder the of the coming world. In the soaring up of his finales, the blasts of his trumpets, one can almost see ahead of time the birth of steel, of steam, of aviation, of POWER writ large.  Out of a chaotic diseased world, an age of servitude and slavery, a collapsing order, the asthetic of a new age was already underway.

So it is today.  As early as the 1950's, the look, the sound, the art, the feel of a new age was already being born.  From the early voices such as Rachel Carson, R. Buckminster Fuller, and Barry Commoner, to the magnificent edifices of thought that are the works of Alvin Toffler, to the continuing work of Community Solutions and http://www.centerforsustainablecommunity.org/

I challenge one to look at the work of sculptor Barbara Hepworth.
http://www.artchive.com/artchive/h/hepworth/two_figures.jpg
http://www.colchsfc.ac.uk/art/Hepworth%20-%20Pelagos.jpg
http://cyberpathway.com/art/lane/Barbhepw.jpg
 Allow your mind to expand upon the idea of the "soft" and "organic" forms.  Think of the forms, interwoven, the mix of "in" and "out", applied to buildings, to transportation...think of them as "political" and organizational models, flowing, moving, but seemingly at rest, multifaceted, with visible and invisible topography, the inside sometimes daringly visible, at other times, woven behind other surfaces.

Likewise, the ACTION painting, the sheer CHAOS of the work of Jackson Pollock.  How daring the theory of ACTION for the sake of action, not for the sake of the result, but there would indeed be a result.
http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/pollock/pollock.stenographic.jpg
http://www.arkarts.com/images/art/aac_art_87046pollock.jpg
Complex, but organic, unlike prior forms, but natural, indicative of a world both on the move,  but retaining a dynamic stability, CHANGE in ACTION.  Humane?  Survivable?  Of course, but not easy.

We now know Darwinism to be a creation myth born for the Industrial Age.  The construction of LIFE and of human existence is far more complex than it could have ever supposed in the Industrial Darwinian age, and also more dynamic, more varied in pace, construction, material and design than the simple Industrial theory of "Neanderthal Man to Range Rover Man" could have possible dreamed.  

And one thing is for sure:  It will take much more than a little shortage of liquid fuel to write the end of human destiny.

Roger Conner  known to you as ThatsItImout

I don't think a farm piracy would be be a mid to long term survival strategy. In the case of Afrian war lords, they usually protect the farms from everyone else to ensure their gang has sufficient supplies. But, since these people don't have the first clue about farming, its highly likely that they would let you keep on farming, but with a tax. Why would anyone (no matter how ruthless) destroy a source of food in a time of crisis?

>There is safety in numbers. The survivors will band together in tribes or clans.

It all depends on the type of people you band with. I believe there are few people that think an agraculture collapse is possible, and I think you'll have an even harder time finding qualified people. Of course there are the permaculture folks, but most of them seem to operate more as a socialist cult. I would be afraid to band with these people. Plus I have different objective then them. They want to build a sustainable society using 100% organic processes (with no or very little use of machinary or technology). I am interested in self-survival and will use any tool or technology at my disposal to achieve my survival and keep my standard of living as best possible.

By banding into a large group of people, you may be endangering yourself and your property. For instance, there might be individuals that get drunk all the time, want to grow recreation drugs, etc. They might cause a serious accident that damages or destroys your equipment or home. In my opinion, the risks out weight the benefits.

> It could be twenty or more farmers with a central community that would offer protection.

While your idea sounds good, there are several issues to consider:

1. Purchasing a sizeble piece of land for your co-op. The more people that are part of the clan the more land your group will need. What is the likelyhood that you will find farmers that are willing to uproot (mult-generation farms), or have the capital to purchase their land share?

2. What happens if there is a fall out with one or multiple farmers. Perhaps some of them have a nervious breakdown in response to the collapse and become a danger to the group.

3. Banding together makes your group a larger target, since its likely that your co-op will attract the attentions of drifters by word of mouth. Ever see the movie "grapes of wraith" where drifters travel to these farms in hope of work, only to find out that there are a thousand other people looking to do the same.

4. Pitfalls of socialism. In non-capitalist systems, such as a co-op, people usually begin to do less and consume more and let others pick up the slack for them. Any co-op ideally should include a monetary system to prevent the development of slackers.

5. Who is the leader of the group? Whats to prevent you and your family from being booted off the co-op if you have a falling out with the group leader(s).

I don't see this happening. Overall I expect the number of survival farms to be realitivity small. Few people here are considering it, and most that know about PO plan to move into cities. The remaining working farms will probably be so small that it would be virtually impossible for a farm pirate gang finding enough of them to survive. Either the survivors will quickly develop a renewable source of food, or they perish.

I don't know what will happen. I suppose that your guesses are as good as mine. Since I can't convince hardly anyone that going rural is the best option. I will do my best to make prepations on my own. If I find others later, perhaps I will let the join.

Its also possible that future may not be as dark. Overall all going rural seems the better choice if the other option is to remain in a urban or suburban region with rising unemployment and drug use. Perhaps the gov't might be able to provide enough food to keep the masses at bay. Or the gov't might take miltary action to contain urbanites from tearing up the country side.

I would recommend that you avoid trying to build a 100% sustainable organic farm. If you decide to go the farm route, do as Todd suggested and use fertilizer and any tool or resource to make your life as a farmer easy. It makes no sense to kill yourself trying to survive (pun intended!). Choose a path that provides the best chance for your farm to succeed.

Personally, I would want to remain in control of my farm and land at all times. When it comes to survival I wouldn't want to risk putting my survival in the hands of other people. The stakes are too high for a failure. If you decide to join a farming co-op (assuming that you can find one), you better be sure that it doesn't contain any wackos. Remember Wacko Texas and David Koresh?

Thanks