I’m not a farmer but I’ve been reading about the history of industrial farming lately and I’ve become convinced that we’re approaching agriculture completely wrong. We’re planting massive monocultures in soil that’s been wrecked for decades (via the things you’ve mentioned), surely that would have something to do with it?
If we completely flipped everything we’ve been doing for agriculture we’d be better off in the long run. Small farms have better yeilds, polycropping is better for the environment and modern pesticides create an evolutionary arms race that we will never win. We’ve got it all wrong and we’ve known it since (at least) the 70s. These outdated, expensive, impractical agricultural practices are only making things worse