Summary The development and mixed benefits of high-input industrial agriculture are reviewed, then illustrated with findings from a Georgia landscape study. As a basis for considering ways to reduce the serious negative aspects of industrial agriculture, we compared the basic ecological energetics and processes of natural ecosystems with pre-industrial, industrial, and reduced-input conservation tillage agroecosystems. We also reviewed our 20-year comparison of conventional tillage with no-till systems. The conclusion is that current trends to redesign industrial agriculture along the lines of reduced-input conservation tillage systems should be accelerated in order to maintain and restore soil quality, and to reduce pollution and soil erosion at the landscape scale.
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Odum et al. (2004) studied this question.
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