We left efficiency in farming for volume of production a long time ago; gradually we're adding sustainability, efficiency and enhanced process/technology back into agriculture. The main issue has always been that nature has never been passive, it fights back.
My approach is to not fight back, but instead harness that tendency for benefit. My trials are only in year 2. I am not ready to publish or discuss details on a skeptic forum as of yet. I'll need much more repeatable data before I can do that. But I'll give you a very highly simplified explanation. Consider this. A weed is only a weed because we haven't discovered a purpose for it. Give it a purpose and instead of fighting it, you can use it to increase production. I know this sounds completely different than anything you ever learned before. For thousands of years the basic premise in agriculture was remove the weeds and replace them with crops. But nature seldom works that way. In nature a whole range of species live, to the benefit of all. Just to give you an idea of the concept. I'll be happy to post a link to another experimental farm promoting this new approach to agriculture that has developed a system for growing commodity grains to scale. This system sequesters large quantities of carbon in the soil, uses far less inputs, and actually over time as the soil improves and the skill of the farmer increases, out yields conventional agriculture.
Why pasture cropping is such a Big Deal
Now I am not a commodity grain grower. I grow vegetables. So this system is not directly applicable to what I am doing. But it certainly is part of a way to convert agriculture to a carbon sequestration machine, mitigating at least in part global warming. Especially if it is combined with Holistic managed grazing between grain crops.
What I am experimenting with is a way to scale up to full size commercial vegetable production using the same principles of actually encouraging perennials (called weeds to a conventional farmer) to coexist in the same fields at the same time.
The key is that ~20% of the products made from photosynthesis are extruded directly into the root zone by many plants (mostly perennial grasses and forbs) to feed the symbiotic microbiology. That carbon, being extruded deep in the soil, does not quickly return to the atmosphere like decaying vegetation on the surface does. That's why it is sequestered into deep geological time. But in order for this to happen, you need a growing plant. Applying herbicides, plowing or weeding destroys this effect. Also this effect is greatly reduced in annuals. Those perennials feeding the microbiology also results in self fertilization. (the symbiots repayment for the free food supply of sugars)
Basically what we are trying to do is artificially create an
ecological cascade in reverse. In other words, where conventional agriculture causes a negative ecological cascade, we are attempting to use the effect to heal the land instead, a positive ecological cascade. The concept is so new, there really isn't a good term for it. Biomimicry, Permaculture, carbon farming or Ecoagriculture would be the closest terms applicable. I personally always considered it a form of "organic" agriculture, since "organic" describes carbon compounds created from living things. Compounds that when reduced create humus in the soil. But the term "organic" seems to have been corrupted over the years by unscrupulous marketers and certification boards. So call it whatever you want.
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land surface, not ocean surface! 