[roel_v]

Yes, thanks to the Green Revolution, which is based on 'chemical' fertilizers/pesticides and intensive farming practices. 'Permaculture' style 'farming' (it's more 'gardening', really) doesn't have anywhere close to the same yields.

(I have a 2 acre 'food forest', I'm not a 'Big AG apologist' or any of the dozens of other things I've been called over the years - I'm just realistic)

[aldoushuxley001]

Actually this sort of farming does have more yield per acre, it just requires significantly more manual labour.

As tech evolves tho, I think we'll see chemical pesticides and herbicides replaced with mechanical solutions instead.

The world doesn't necessarily need to use industrial agriculture to achieve the same yields, the alternative is to be having many more farmers working smaller a plots and actually getting better yields from it.

[roel_v]

I meant 'yield per input unit', where 'input unit' is a not exactly defined mix of land, labor, external supply of matter, tools and technology/know how. Sure you can grow an acre of wheat to maximize 'caloric yield' (or potatoes depending on how much of the processing-before-consumption you account for...), or an acre of 'organic basil' to get a maximum 'pecuniary yield', or another thing or mix of things to maximize for whatever optimum function you choose. My point is that a 'solution' where we can theoretically feed 7/8 billion people if only double-digit percentages of them, say, pick apples from full size trees, careful to not damage the berries underneath with their ladders, instead of having a few people on tractors riding through dwarf orchards (just one example of something I happen to have done some economic analysis of the last week - there are similar examples in other areas of agriculture) is not really a 'solution' at all.

Now, I do agree with you that with even better technology than we have now, we can replace much of what we need chemistry for with mechanical solutions. Although, chemical application with modern systems can be dosed on areas measured in square feet, a long way from the 'a bit of nitrogen is good so double the amount is better' mentality of a few decades ago. But the future of agriculture is not in 'back to land' or 'permaculture' style farming. It's in more technology, not less, and less labor, not more.

[JBReefer]

If the yield of food per labor unit goes down, and we want to feed the worlds poor (aka keep food prices at least flat), that necessitates a substantial drop in farm labor wages. Seeing as migrant laborers are already pretty close to being slaves, reducing their wages is not going to result in a conscionable working situation.

I'd take environmental degradation over slavery, to be honest.