I guess your interpretation of “naturally” is “when non-sustainably farmed”? ;)
My impression is that we know how to keep farmland productive without using fertilizers by rotating crops, letting fields lie fallow sometimes, and involving fauna. Of course, this might be much less efficient than using synthetic fertilizers, so I’m not saying that’s what we should be doing.
See my comments above for some discussion of this topic. Broadly speaking we do know how to keep farmland productive but there are uncaptured externalities and other inadequacies to be accounted for.
The claim I’m objecting to is:
I guess your interpretation of “naturally” is “when non-sustainably farmed”? ;)
My impression is that we know how to keep farmland productive without using fertilizers by rotating crops, letting fields lie fallow sometimes, and involving fauna. Of course, this might be much less efficient than using synthetic fertilizers, so I’m not saying that’s what we should be doing.
See my comments above for some discussion of this topic. Broadly speaking we do know how to keep farmland productive but there are uncaptured externalities and other inadequacies to be accounted for.