In most places where agribiz farming methods prevail, the uppermost layer of topsoil that was rich in humus is long gone.
What sustains crop yields is the use of synthetic fertilizers, which do nothing to sustain the microbiome needed to rebuild the quality of soil.
Indeed, our use of synthetic fertilizers not only greatly reduces the quality of our soils, but also releases nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse gas. Even the inactive fillers that such chemical fertilizers are mixed with to enhance their effective application are problematic because they are not adequately regulated and many toxic materials are all too often used.
https://www.southlandorganics.com/blogs/news/17982096-health-effects-of-synthetic-fertilizer
Additionally, the nitrogen from such fertilizers washes out of the soil and into our waterways, thus creating extensive algae blooms that are disruptive. The catch-22 is that we’re so dependent on synthetic fertilizers and the doubled amount of food production that they allow that we will find it increasingly difficult to begin restoring the once abundant levels of humus in our topsoils that’s needed to further sequester carbon dioxide and increase crop yields organically.
Note: The Ukraine war’s disruption of shipments of food and fertilizer may give us a taste of what’s to come when the eventual use of synthetic fertilizer use is disrupted by the need to reduce greenhouse gases such as nitrous oxide (and to sequester carbon dioxide in the soil by restoring original humus levels and its bio-genome).
https://climate.mit.edu/explainers/fertilizer-and-climate-change
YouTube (11:55)“Soil Is A Living Organism”:
(04:34) Soil Sequestration of Carbon:
Supplemental:
At the most basic level, synthetic fertilizers incompletely feed the plant; organic fertilizers feed the soil that feeds the entirety of the plant.
For more, search:
‘hazards of synthetic chemical fertilizers’
‘natural ways enrich soil’
‘biochar enrich soil’
