Letters to the Editor
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excellent insight
I totally agree that instead of using science to alter the environment/nature we should be using it to understand and work with/get the most out of our environment.
On thing that needs to be said though is that the current system of highly centralized agriculture won't work in a crop rotation cycle. Effective post-industrial agriculture is time and labour intensive. It relies on keeping track of a vast range of variables relating the health of soil and animals. It would require farmers to actually have some sort of scientific background and understanding (I'm not saying there aren't any farmers that have this knowledge/education, only that farming isn't exactly a career that the brightest students are encouraged to get into by their guidance counsellors).
Farming would need to be de-centralized and more people would need to take it up in order for this system to work. That would mean that farming would have to be profitable and respected, in order to attract more people to do it.
Back in the day a huge percentage of Americans were farmers (just think about how many of you can say that one of your grandparents/great-grandparents was a farmer). Now, it is an incredibly small percentage of people producing a massive amount of food. Something needs to address that imbalance before the sort of post-industrial agriculture discussed here can happen.