Scary, third of arable land lost in only 40 years

[Tartar Horde]

The soil is dead in the vast majority of arable land, and is simply there to support the crops. The crops are fed by fertilisers, and pests kept in check by pesticides. Crop rotation is still practised but has very little to do with feeding those crops or maintaining the health, as this is all done by artificial means. The scary fact is that without this industrial scale agriculture we could not feed the majority of the populaton by "traditional" means. Consider this; for every calorie of food you eat there are ten calories of hydrocarbon "energy" needed to put that food on your plate. The only way we as a species can maintain our high, and ever increasing numbers is to carry on with this form of agriculture, but we all know it is ultimately going to collapse, as you can not have infinate growth in a finite system.