when humans started planting single crops that needed to be replanted year after year, the problem of fertility loss began. The way industrial agriculture deals with this problem is well known: irrigate heavily to make up for the fact that annual plants do a poor job of retaining moisture (a growing problem as fresh water becomes more scarce), and lay on the chemicals, both to fertilize and ward off invasive pests and weeds. This in turn creates a host of new environmental and health problems, including massive aquatic dead zones caused by agricultural runoff.
