[screener]

Cricket tragic, you said, "Stubble retention with minimum to zero tillage practices are ideal for reversing these problems. " I was wondering how ideal that is when in order to farm under that kind of regime you're either adding manure or chemical fertilizer, and the latter is unsustainable.

Then you said "You need to remember that fossil fuels are just an energy source." That's a little like saying the oceans are mostly water. Fossil fuels are the basis of "modern" farming and it wouldn't exist without the cheap oil and gas of thirty and fourty years ago. Since then reality is coming home to roost. IDEAL becomes a little different when more factors are considered. Whatever the energy source of the future it will be more expensive yet, unless society goes along with subsidizing ourselves again.

No til and even gm may have a place in the future of agriculture but society will have to recycle it's sewage into fertilizer cleanly, which is an idea whose time came twenty or thirty years ago.

Personally I think there is enough agricultural land around the globe that farmers are able to produce enough food using local sustainable resources, water, energy, and fertilizer. We just have to stop giving all our returns to the oil and agribusiness giants, and the banks.