Modern mechanized agriculture is incredibly efficient and productive, but it degrades soil health over time and loses topsoil. There are methods that increase

Modern mechanized agriculture is incredibly efficient and productive, but it degrades soil health over time and loses topsoil. There are methods that increase soil and fertility over time (Permaculture, Syntropic farming, regenerative agriculture) but they are typically relatively labor intensive. China and India have made great strides in recent times. India's Water Revolution #2: The Biggest Permaculture Project on Earth! with the Paani Foundation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDMnbeW3F8A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDMnbeW3F8A India's Water Revolution #3: From Poverty to Permaculture with DRCSC https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtHuIlfyJao https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtHuIlfyJao Regreening the desert with John D. Liu https://youtu.be/IDgDWbQtlKI?t=82 https://youtu.be/IDgDWbQtlKI?t=82 > It all started in 1995 when Liu filmed the Loess-plateau in China. He witnessed a local population who turned an area of almost the same size as The Netherlands from a dry, exhausted wasteland into one green oasis. This experience changed his life. To me it seems that the two main areas to focus on to make a real contribution are: 1) Make modern agriculture ecologically harmonious. 2) Make ecologically harmonious agriculture more automated. Obviously these converge. (My feeling is that we would be happier with lots of little farms rather than a few large ones, but I'm not interested in debating that particular point. I care about ecological harmony. Future generations can work out the economic forms provided we don't crash the system before then.)