[siosonel]

"Farms are a long way from a natural environment, the modern farming process is awash with chemicals and such."

It seems you are viewing industrial, monoculture farming techniques as a justification for what humans should be able to get away with as far as land or resource use. It is not at all self-evident that such an approach works best. There is an opposite viewpoint that traditional, diverse crop farming could produce higher quality, higher nutrition output without using too much inorganic fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides.

My point is that you seem to conveniently accept the "obvious superiority" of a modern approach and ignore other viewpoints or approaches wherein biodiversity fits in naturally.

[JudasGoat]

With robotic advances to deal the higher labor intensity of diverse crop farming, I think it could be cost competitive in the near future. The question I think is: Who will be behind funding and developing? I think it would take a "Tesla" type commitment to complete.