It’s a wonderful goal and one that can only be brought about by further intensification and change, not by retreat and organic subsistence. Indeed, come to think of it, let’s make farming a multi-storey business, with hydroponic drip-irrigation and electric lighting producing food year-round on derelict urban sites linked by conveyor belt directly to supermarkets. Let’s pay for the buildings and the electricity by granting the developer tax breaks for retiring farmland elsewhere into forest, swamp or savannah. It is an uplifting and thrilling ideal.
