IMHO modern industrial agriculture isn't using the soil (
in the strict definition of soil) anymore. It is basically just using the ground as a growing medium and then providing the nutrients that the soil would provide through applications of nitrogen/phosphorous/potassium.
Every year I watch the sand from the farm next door runoff in spring rains into the ditch, which ends up in the creek across the road, which then runs down into Lake Ontario. There's no soil left. On almost all the farms here. But they can still grow things through 'artificial' means.
Every year I watch the sand from the farm next door runoff in spring rains into the ditch, which ends up in the creek across the road, which then runs down into Lake Ontario. There's no soil left. On almost all the farms here. But they can still grow things through 'artificial' means.