Growing a Revolution: Bringing Our Soil Back to Life

In Growing a Revolution David R. Montgomery advocates farming practices that center upon building healthy soil. Conventional agriculture depletes soil of nutrients and gradually leads to an erosion of topsoil. Fertilizer attempts to restore some of the critical nutrients. However, it does not restore the important micro organisms that help make healthy soil. Also, a good portion of the fertilizer runs off, contaminating water supplies. In addition, the tendency to plant the same crops over and over makes them more subject to pests, requiring more pesticides, leading to resistant pests and more pesticide use.
He advocates for "no till farming" with crop rotations. Rather than plow the ground, the previous crops are used for mulch. New crops (of a different variety) are planted in the ground. The organic matter decays and improves the health of the soil. The rotation and planting of cover crops helps improve the health of the soil and make it more resistant to pests. This healthier soil is also much better at holding water than plowed soil. No till farming can be either organic or conventional. In general, it may more closely resemble organic farming because of less dependence on pesticides and fertilizer. However, the practice can be done with either conventional or organic approaches. (Pest control with conventional would still be an acceptable if needed.) An initial shift to no-till farming may see a drop in productivity. However, as the soil health builds up, productivity tends to be similar to conventional farming. However, the input costs of no-till farming practices are much less. Thus, even when productivity is lower, the no-till farms are still much more profitable.
The main problem with no-till farming is that there is not a business interest behind it. It results in lower demand for big agrichemicals. Perhaps what they need to do is get big farm implement companies behind it. There has to be a good deal of money behind "no-till" tractor equipment. Perhaps seed companies could also get behind selling more seeds. (Though the author does discuss a breeder who is working on perennial grains.)
The author also takes the discussion across the world. In Africa, he meets with a no-till advocate. In Asia, society has been returning human waste to the ground as fertilizer for many years. (Cities even sell their waste to farmers.) Even Tacoma sells processed sewage as fertilizer. Farmers in North Dakota have adopted no-till to significant success.