There are also better ways for agriculture which can regenerate soil, maintain biodiversity while at the same time harvest more.
The places where industrial agriculture has taken off, that seems not to be the story. Grandparents in China are thrilled to see their children working city jobs. It's a hard life still, but much easier than they had.
> regenerate soil, maintain biodiversity while at the same time harvest more.
I very much want those things. And corporations do sometimes make stupid decisions. But it's hard for me to believe there are such free lunches on a large scale. If there were, some enterprising soul ought to go start a business exploiting them, make a killing, put Monsanto out of business, etc.
Also there are many potential biotech revolutions - like China developing rice that can use salt water - if our crops could use seawater like the mangroves, that wouod be huge.
Another massive thing, is perrenial crops - meaning you dont have to plant them every year. There are perrenial cousins of our staple foods like wheat, but firstly they are harder to automatically harvest/manage, secondly they do not benefit from thousands of years of selective breeding. So we gave to invest massive amounts of money to ger their yields up, and even if you do, there is no guarantee consumers will eat them - they taste a bit different
Fun fact: Italians hated tomatoes for centuries.
https://lithub.com/unhealthy-smelly-and-strange-why-italians...
When most corporate leaders don't care what happens 2 years from now?
Unless you think cavemen shouldn't have burned sticks for warmth out of concern for CO2 emissions, the way out for humanity will be through (further technological gains enabling more energy expended per capita, hopefully cleanly), not backwards.
The problem with that is it's only one man that gets the benefit.
Yes, I'm twisting your words a bit. The point I'm making is that these profit motives tend towards capital hoarding by individuals. _That_ process tends towards selfish decision making where the only long-term benefit is the individual and their family, often at the cost of short and long term damage or hinderance to other people and the environment. I confess I make many such decisions myself, but it's very hard not within our current economic system.
I'm not arguing for a return to some imaginary glory projected onto images from the past at all. I'm trying to feel out ideas for future systems more of us can engage with comfortably, which don't promote the double hit of individual-focused power imbalances and environmental damage.
I feel this way about the current trend in plant-based meat replacements. I’ll trust the hype about lower carbon footprint, but they take food production further into industrialisation and profit motive territory which was, in part, how we got into this environmental crisis in the first place.