I don't think the problem is their reliance on fertilizers. It's their reliance on the modern agro business. Any farm today has to generate an insane amount of

I don't think the problem is their reliance on fertilizers. It's their reliance on the modern agro business. Any farm today has to generate an insane amount of a monoculture to make any money, and thus has to "roid up" their farm to do so. It's bad for the environment, it's bad for us... the only people it's good for is the middle men. (a lot of the problem is not directly the farm, but the people who rent or lease land, the prices paid for a given crop, etc. It's very much a systemic economic problem) Without modern agro business practices, we still make enough food to export most of it. The USA today makes $131 Billion dollars exporting food & feed using unsustainable practices. (it's worth noting that this number is going down, because other countries don't like our food processing standards; one of the reasons TTIP was blocked) Cut that in half, and we'd still make $70 Billion, but we'd only have to produce half as much. Improve our farming & food processing standards, and it might actually increase, as we could become a preferred market in a world with higher food and environmental standards.