Why go back to say corn and beef, when neither are leaving any meaningful return. You would just be working harder for nothing. Are we facing a dead end
Life is full of compromises, to think any different will just lead to frustration.
In an ideal world (for the soil), the land would be left return to nature - eventually returning to deciduous forest.
But us humans are here and seem to like multiplying in number. Humans need food & can’t eat trees.
We are being told not to eat meat which means more reliance on crops which need some form of soil cultivation to grow.
Being pragmatic, we need to grow crops but while caring for the soil as best we can within practical and financial limits.
We plough, I’m sure it releases more carbon than direct drilling. I don’t plough because I enjoy it or the slow output it entails but because I find it the best way to establish the plant population that I want in cereals.
I like the fact that we don’t plough for WOSR or beans - it saves time.
I think the furrow press with the plough lessens the Carbon loss from our soil (because it squeezes out a share of the oxygen that oxidises the Carbon).
If I put out less N or P, crop output will fall.
So, it’s not easy to be perfect!
Towards the end of his career, Norman Borlaug said that we need to control our population increase. I think he was right. I’m not sure if he also meant the behaviour of the population.