Many of the practices proposed to reduce the impact on the environment are nonstarters because of low land yields (and indeed might actually be worse on the env

Many of the practices proposed to reduce the impact on the environment are nonstarters because of low land yields (and indeed might actually be worse on the environment because you need to convert more land to farmland). If this method has equal land yields and less environmental impact but is highly labor intensive, perhaps there is scope for mechanization to make it competitive.