One factor I enjoy exploring is that a key ecological differentiation between Factory Farming and "What everyone enjoys and seems to know might have potential"-

One factor I enjoy exploring is that a key ecological differentiation between Factory Farming and "What everyone enjoys and seems to know might have potential"-Farming is mono-culture vs poly-culture. In Factory Farming a single variable (crop) is moved to one side of the '=' and the inputs are sorted on the other. The variables of seed rate, fertilizer rate, irrigation rate ( especially against the weather ) and timing ( herbicide before, pesticide after, fertilize at seed time? ) are complex enough, but worthwhile to study in abstraction, such that we have in the 20th century produced such programs at universities and funded them well enough that the USDA keep very good guides for many crops in many soil and climate zone combinations. Crop rotation and even grazing rotation are even studied quite well for their soil-building (and thereby fertilizer supplanting) potentials. But what I see in practice around me is that the fields here in seven years are planted in cotton seven times. Most farmers would approach rotation with the same sense as if you asked a manufacturing facility to change from plastics manufacturing to use the space for printing and finishing work for textiles in order to improve the skill-set of the operators. Once you ( As a farmer) nail the timing and rates of corn, you don't roll the dice with 10k acres of your livelihood. Once you build the fences for cattle, you don't want to do it all again for sheep ( different line type and height ) The upside is still very attractive. There's just some serious work to do, keeping the lights on.