> This is an urban legend.

It's an urban legend that Iowa has a legacy of good soil built up from generations of natural processes? I'm skeptical of your assessment. Can you dive more into it?

The ecologists I talked to seem to think that soil is very important to the health of the ecosystem & to grow healthy food.

> The rest is wishful thinking.

That is what I call an urban legend. It's certainly a made up story.

> Topsoil became irrelevant to farming decades ago.

Your perspective on topsoil is interesting, considering how nutrition in our food is on a downward trend. Also interesting how we are having drought, desertification, loss of habitat, pollution, etc. Most ecologists will disagree with your assessment that Topsoil is "irrelevant".

> Returning to a Pollyanna view of a perfect agrarian society of cows fertilizing humble fields of vegetables, would result in widespread shortages.

That's a myth & a failure of imagination; especially when you consider the pattern of decentralizing (localizing) agricultural production around the world. The UN endorses organic & distributed farming as the most viable options to feed the world. They can go even further & take a restorative approach to also heal the natural ecosystems that we are destroying.

There are studies that show that perennial polyculture systems grow more calories than monoculture systems. Third world countries are beginning to take the lead in growing their own food using many small scale, distributed, perennial polycultures ecosystems, with animals.

You can't write it off just like that. There's too much evidence that it will work...

The alternative is the status quo, destroying our ecosystems, polluting our water, decreasing food nutrition, making more crappy monotonous food, obesity, declining human health, desertification, etc. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for efficiency, however let's efficiently do healthy things, not efficiently do unhealthy things.

> Corn based ethanol no longer uses more energy than it creates; that threshold was reached years ago. Some more reading is in order, I suggest.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_energy_balance

It looks like there's a controversy over Ethanol's net output. You also need to consider the energy required to produce the fertilizer/pesticides, transport the ethanol, etc. It's certainly an order of magnitude less productive than fossil fuels.

I'm more interested in renewable energy, such as solar, wind, biogas, etc. Utilizing so much land, soil, water, etc. to grow energy seems wasteful & counterproductive to growing food that is nutritious, has variety, is restorative, & clean.

> Just pointing out how agriculture economic systems work, and its absolutely nothing like described above.

I can see your point when taking a reductionistic lens to this system. When you look at the big picture, the agricultural sector is responsible for most of our CO2 pollution, soil runoff, loss of habitat, loss of health, etc. I'd venture to say that our agricultural practices are not restorative/responsible & leave much to be desired. In short, the product, it's costs, & it's consequences suck! This is also the planet I live on & I'm relying on you to be responsible with it's systems.

To write off improvements as "not able to work" is intellectually lazy. The improvements will work & require more attention if we (humanity) will prosper in the future...