Sure, starting really generally: "regenerative agriculture" and "permaculture" are good keywords. I think looking for any solution to scale the way industrial

Sure, starting really generally: "regenerative agriculture" and "permaculture" are good keywords. I think looking for any solution to scale the way industrial agriculture does is approaching the problem from the wrong direction. The scaling of industrial agriculture is the problem. I don't think any one alternative is "the" solution, but rather that many alternative methods need to be applied where appropriate and at smaller scales. Smaller farms but lots more of them. Food needs to be grown in places that we currently don't think of as farmland: mass lawn conversion, urban farming, etc. Okay, onto some references of techniques that I can think of off the top of my head: Silvopasture is a way of combining tree crops with livestock grazing that sequesters carbon from the atomosphere. https://www.fs.usda.gov/nac/practices/silvopasture.php https://www.fs.usda.gov/nac/practices/silvopasture.php Riparian buffers separate rivers from farmland. They filter runoff from the fields, guard against floods because healthy soil and vegetation act like a sponge, and, if many land owners participate, they create uninterrupted habitat for wildlife. This sacrifices some field area, but it means that a "100 year flood" that now happen more frequently due to climate change won't destroy a family's source of income by washing away all the soil away. https://www.extension.iastate.edu/smallfarms/what-riparian-buffer https://www.extension.iastate.edu/smallfarms/what-riparian-b... "No till" or "no dig" cultivation. Tilling breaks networks of fungi and bacteria, causing a short-term burst of available nutrients for plants, but done year after year reduces soil health (in other words: diminishing returns.) Sowing or transplanting with minimal soil disturbance and top-dressing with compost builds soil life over time and is less labor intensive. https://charlesdowding.co.uk/faqs/ https://charlesdowding.co.uk/faqs/ Swales reduce pressure on irrigation systems on sloped land by storing water in the soil. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swale_(landform) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swale_(landform) Cover cropping means that the field isn't left bare. There's always something growing on it to keep the soil from eroding or blowing away in the wind. Cover crops act as a living mulch, and then as a regular mulch when they are slashed down when it comes time to plant the cash crop. Legumes are often used as cover crops because they are a natural fertilizer due to a symbiotic relationship they form with a special kind of bacteria that takes nitrogen from the air and deposits it in the soil. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cover_crop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cover_crop A book on the subject of carbon farming: https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/the-carbon-farming-solution/ https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/the-carbon-farming-solu... A book (more philosophical than technical) about a Japanese rice farmer who successfully rejected western agriculture and pioneered natural farming practices: https://www.nyrb.com/products/the-one-straw-revolution?variant=1094932353 https://www.nyrb.com/products/the-one-straw-revolution?varia...