> Only a very small percentage of the material in a plant is actually from the soil, so most of the activity on a farm is not fundamentally a form of mining. T

> Only a very small percentage of the material in a plant is actually from the soil, so most of the activity on a farm is not fundamentally a form of mining. This is demonstratably false, you only have to look at Hydroponics to see that. A lot of plants are difficult to grow via Hydroponics, and Hydroponicists go to a lot of trouble to put nutrients in the water that they use, despite the fact that _not_ doing so would allow the Hydroponics system to be more efficient and need less maintenance (the latter of which is the main barrier to general-use Hydroponics). If one looks at spray-based systems, the main cost there is the nutrients clogging the spray heads. However, without those nutrients, the plant will literally not grow. The microorganisms, metals, and NPK in the soil are hugely important to the growth and nutrition of the resulting product.