> However, the increase in labor needed shouldn't be underestimated. Some automation is likely possible with advanced robots, but this would mean a much larger fraction of the population would be involved in agriculture, perhaps as much as 10X as are currently employed.
I don't think it would be so radical. For one thing, only about 1% of us work in agriculture now, so even if it takes 10x that's still only 10%.
“Only 10%?” That is a massive shift in labor allocation that would be enormously disruptive if it were feasible which it likely isn’t at least in the medium term.
Personally, I doubt it would take as much as that. IANAEconomist but I would guess that it won't take more than 3%, if that.
Even if it was a massive shift, it's not happening in a vacuum, we're already in the midst of a great reconfiguration of the (global) economy, automation taking jobs, etc.
Also, there are soil-respecting forms of agriculture that are just like modern conventional agriculture except they incorporate ecological knowledge into their methods. (I like to remind people that Ecology is a science and its applications are technology!) Folks like Gabe Brown up there in North Dakota. ( https://soilhealthacademy.org/team/gabe-brown/ ) He doesn't work any harder than his (conventional non-regenerative) neighbors, probably a bit less, yet he makes more profit while improving (rather than degrading) his land (in other words, his primary asset is appreciating.)
As much as I personally love the idea of a nation of smallholdings, where people tend their food forests and live in harmony with nature like some kind of elves or something, that's just my personal taste, eh? I recognize that, pragmatically, we could keep the status quo except for the part where we are destroying the health of the soil, which is the basis of our own health and happiness after all.
It would give us time to work out all our other problems, eh?
I don't think it would be so radical. For one thing, only about 1% of us work in agriculture now, so even if it takes 10x that's still only 10%.