Umm, steering off of politics and religion...
I can show examples where permaculture operations take amounts of food off of pocket acreage that a commercial agriculture operation couldn't match on twice as much land, using no-till organic polycropping. Sepp Holzer's farm in Austria, the Permaculture Institute, Emilia Hazelip, PLENTY of examples to dismiss that paradigm.
Can you do it from a tractor? No. Can you do it with tilling, or chemicals? No. All of the people saying we can't do THAT are the ones that have never tried it, and want to stick to what they know. It's human nature to resist change, but if you never embrace the old thinking in the first place then it's a lot easier than you think. I am trying to convince people to not adopt the old school thinking and start fresh with ideas that embrace natural systems, so they don't create the problems modern agriculture has.
Cynthia is right, this has been a discussion, not an argument. Dillbert is not ever likely to go with the wierdness I have been dabbling in lately. Not tilling, leaving some weeds; this sort of thinking rubs old fashioned gardeners the wrong way. They see the style they have adopted as being threatened, like they are being told they have been doing it wrong all their lives. Whether that is true or not, it evokes strong emotion, and we need be cognizant and respectful of that.
Dillbert, have you read the white papers I presented? I see no reference to them. What is your response to the destruction of aggregation? I can offer more papers; Penn State has a good one as well... the majority of agricultural academia are embracing lowered rateor lower impact tilling if not complete dismissal of it.
Desertification is NOT a GW issue. Not at all. The Chinese are currently turning their western farming region into a dustbowl with deep plowing on unsustainable soil, just as we did in our Dustbowl. This has been going on for millenia; cultivation without return of huus depletes soils. It took longer with old school tilling, but it is the very same process, just speeded up. I am not saying that GW is not a factor, but it is human intervention that is causal, and
mostly due to agriculture. [url=https://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2004/maathai-bio.html]Dr. Wangari Maathai[/url] has addressed this issue with her
Greenbelt campaign, for which she won a Nobel. Even China has started to figure this out, and they have planted 6 billion trees in the past few years where they had eliminated forests in favor of big fields and tractors. I hope we do not have to get to such dire straits to learn these lessons, but our soil is still not completely depleted yet...
My supposition of a clay/sand soil was not based on anything you said; simply taking the extreme to illustrate the difference in our tactics. Sand addresses the mechanical issue alone, while my method addresses the chemistry, biology, AND the mechanics. Just helping to illustrate why I think we are better off doing it my way...
About no-till not being new? Absolutely. When the Dutch got to New Guinea, they looked at the land, what they knew about agriculture, and said, "Maybe we will find 20,000 inhabitants".
They found over three million, making it at the time, one of the largest national populations on the planet. The agricultural system in New Guinea has continued for over five thousand years in the same fashion, feeding a sizeable population pretty darn well (no between meal humans anymore!). They have recognized that there are natural constraints that they need to put on their population and have evolved mating and courtship rituals that restrict population. This "primitive" culture has never had a need for big government, wars beyond the intertribal, mostly ceremonial type, or industrial society and it's inherent damages. All documented by Jared Diamond in a number of his books.
I am not saying we all need to emulate New Guineans, but we should be aware of the example and know it can be done and done well. I agree with Dillbert (and Malthus)that population restriction in some form is part of the solution/problem, but refute the idea that we cannot feed the planet sustainably. RBG's WWII example remains a sound one...
As for grass-fed versus CAFO, I would need to see what you are talking about Dillbert, because that goes against everything I have read or heard. [url=https://www.greenuniversity.net/Ideas_to_Change_the_World/AllanSavory.htm]Alan Savory's work[/url]is generally considered to be the cutting edge now, and we get carbon sequestration, soil retention, healthier animals and end product at a reduced cost. [url=https://www.wildflowers-and-weeds.com/sahara.htm]Current practices are not sustainable[/url], but it doesn't mean the idea is wrong. What have you been reading? Can you share it?
I have given plenty of examples to back up my position; I feel it remains opinion and conjecture until supported by documentation. I would be happy to review any supporting evidence you would care to present... disagreement should not mean dismissal
HG