I'm pretty sympathetic to the gist of your comments here (e.g., microbial ecologies, local food production,etc.), but probably fall on the 'need more and better tech' side of things when looking forward along several global trends. Population growth and movements and climate change are two such trends.
I'm reaching here because I dont recall the details but I seem to remember reading about Indian grain production needing to industrialize in order to satisfy its near future domestic demand.
I'd love to get some recommendations for books dealing with large-scale food production (not saying 'factory' but rather 'national', for example) from an econ perspective.
"Population Growth"
I presume you mean "human population growth"- aka at 7 billion and counting. that's an intraspecies issue that needs to be solved. it collides head-on with:
"Climate Change"
We are going to need to re-learn how to produce food locally, and as mentioned before by others: permaculture, not industrial technology, holds the key. The basic lesson of any polluting activity that destabilized our natural world in some fashion is that our activities need to be in harmony with natural cycles. General channel herbicides that affect the uptake of soil nutrition by plants (glyphosate, for example) are not things that should be used as they get into the water and eventually all plant life must deal with their effects, stunting any cultivars not engineered to withstand these effects. What is a "weed" to one person is "green manure" to another that builds soil. It may be a protector plant that draws insects away from crop cultivars, it may have symbiotic beneficials effects we are un-aware of.
We need to step out of the lab and into the field and learn about the complex interactions of the real world if we are to truly learn how to live in harmony with the planet we are from and live upon.
Why do we think and behave as if we are not an animal species native to the surface of earth?
I'm reaching here because I dont recall the details but I seem to remember reading about Indian grain production needing to industrialize in order to satisfy its near future domestic demand.
I'd love to get some recommendations for books dealing with large-scale food production (not saying 'factory' but rather 'national', for example) from an econ perspective.